7. Input and Output
*******************

There are several ways to present the output of a program; data can be
printed in a human-readable form, or written to a file for future use.
This chapter will discuss some of the possibilities.


7.1. Fancier Output Formatting
==============================

So far we’ve encountered two ways of writing values: *expression
statements* and the "print()" function.  (A third way is using the
"write()" method of file objects; the standard output file can be
referenced as "sys.stdout". See the Library Reference for more
information on this.)

Often you’ll want more control over the formatting of your output than
simply printing space-separated values. There are several ways to
format output.

* To use formatted string literals, begin a string with "f" or "F"
  before the opening quotation mark or triple quotation mark. Inside
  this string, you can write a Python expression between "{" and "}"
  characters that can refer to variables or literal values.

     >>> year = 2016
     >>> event = 'Referendum'
     >>> f'Results of the {year} {event}'
     'Results of the 2016 Referendum'

* The "str.format()" method of strings requires more manual effort.
  You’ll still use "{" and "}" to mark where a variable will be
  substituted and can provide detailed formatting directives, but
  you’ll also need to provide the information to be formatted. In the
  following code block there are two examples of how to format
  variables:

     >>> yes_votes = 42_572_654
     >>> total_votes = 85_705_149
     >>> percentage = yes_votes / total_votes
     >>> '{:-9} YES votes  {:2.2%}'.format(yes_votes, percentage)
     ' 42572654 YES votes  49.67%'

  Notice how the "yes_votes" are padded with spaces and a negative
  sign only for negative numbers. The example also prints "percentage"
  multiplied by 100, with 2 decimal places and followed by a percent
  sign (see Format Specification Mini-Language for details).

* Finally, you can do all the string handling yourself by using string
  slicing and concatenation operations to create any layout you can
  imagine.  The string type has some methods that perform useful
  operations for padding strings to a given column width.

When you don’t need fancy output but just want a quick display of some
variables for debugging purposes, you can convert any value to a
string with the "repr()" or "str()" functions.

The "str()" function is meant to return representations of values
which are fairly human-readable, while "repr()" is meant to generate
representations which can be read by the interpreter (or will force a
"SyntaxError" if there is no equivalent syntax).  For objects which
don’t have a particular representation for human consumption, "str()"
will return the same value as "repr()".  Many values, such as numbers
or structures like lists and dictionaries, have the same
representation using either function.  Strings, in particular, have
two distinct representations.

Some examples:

   >>> s = 'Hello, world.'
   >>> str(s)
   'Hello, world.'
   >>> repr(s)
   "'Hello, world.'"
   >>> str(1/7)
   '0.14285714285714285'
   >>> x = 10 * 3.25
   >>> y = 200 * 200
   >>> s = 'The value of x is ' + repr(x) + ', and y is ' + repr(y) + '...'
   >>> print(s)
   The value of x is 32.5, and y is 40000...
   >>> # The repr() of a string adds string quotes and backslashes:
   >>> hello = 'hello, world\n'
   >>> hellos = repr(hello)
   >>> print(hellos)
   'hello, world\n'
   >>> # The argument to repr() may be any Python object:
   >>> repr((x, y, ('spam', 'eggs')))
   "(32.5, 40000, ('spam', 'eggs'))"

The "string" module also contains support for so-called $-strings that
offer yet another way to substitute values into strings, using
placeholders like "$x" and replacing them with values from a
dictionary. This syntax is easy to use, although it offers much less
control of the formatting.


7.1.1. Formatted String Literals
--------------------------------

Formatted string literals (also called f-strings for short) let you
include the value of Python expressions inside a string by prefixing
the string with "f" or "F" and writing expressions as "{expression}".

An optional format specifier can follow the expression. This allows
greater control over how the value is formatted. The following example
rounds pi to three places after the decimal:

   >>> import math
   >>> print(f'The value of pi is approximately {math.pi:.3f}.')
   The value of pi is approximately 3.142.

Passing an integer after the "':'" will cause that field to be a
minimum number of characters wide.  This is useful for making columns
line up.

   >>> table = {'Sjoerd': 4127, 'Jack': 4098, 'Dcab': 7678}
   >>> for name, phone in table.items():
   ...     print(f'{name:10} ==> {phone:10d}')
   ...
   Sjoerd     ==>       4127
   Jack       ==>       4098
   Dcab       ==>       7678

Other modifiers can be used to convert the value before it is
formatted. "'!a'" applies "ascii()", "'!s'" applies "str()", and
"'!r'" applies "repr()":

   >>> animals = 'eels'
   >>> print(f'My hovercraft is full of {animals}.')
   My hovercraft is full of eels.
   >>> print(f'My hovercraft is full of {animals!r}.')
   My hovercraft is full of 'eels'.

The "=" specifier can be used to expand an expression to the text of
the expression, an equal sign, then the representation of the
evaluated expression:

>>> bugs = 'roaches'
>>> count = 13
>>> area = 'living room'
>>> print(f'Debugging {bugs=} {count=} {area=}')
Debugging bugs='roaches' count=13 area='living room'

See self-documenting expressions for more information on the "="
specifier. For a reference on these format specifications, see the
reference guide for the Format Specification Mini-Language.


7.1.2. The String format() Method
---------------------------------

Basic usage of the "str.format()" method looks like this:

   >>> print('We are the {} who say "{}!"'.format('knights', 'Ni'))
   We are the knights who say "Ni!"

The brackets and characters within them (called format fields) are
replaced with the objects passed into the "str.format()" method.  A
number in the brackets can be used to refer to the position of the
object passed into the "str.format()" method.

   >>> print('{0} and {1}'.format('spam', 'eggs'))
   spam and eggs
   >>> print('{1} and {0}'.format('spam', 'eggs'))
   eggs and spam

If keyword arguments are used in the "str.format()" method, their
values are referred to by using the name of the argument.

   >>> print('This {food} is {adjective}.'.format(
   ...       food='spam', adjective='absolutely horrible'))
   This spam is absolutely horrible.

Positional and keyword arguments can be arbitrarily combined:

   >>> print('The story of {0}, {1}, and {other}.'.format('Bill', 'Manfred',
   ...                                                    other='Georg'))
   The story of Bill, Manfred, and Georg.

If you have a really long format string that you don’t want to split
up, it would be nice if you could reference the variables to be
formatted by name instead of by position.  This can be done by simply
passing the dict and using square brackets "'[]'" to access the keys.

   >>> table = {'Sjoerd': 4127, 'Jack': 4098, 'Dcab': 8637678}
   >>> print('Jack: {0[Jack]:d}; Sjoerd: {0[Sjoerd]:d}; '
   ...       'Dcab: {0[Dcab]:d}'.format(table))
   Jack: 4098; Sjoerd: 4127; Dcab: 8637678

This could also be done by passing the "table" dictionary as keyword
arguments with the "**" notation.

   >>> table = {'Sjoerd': 4127, 'Jack': 4098, 'Dcab': 8637678}
   >>> print('Jack: {Jack:d}; Sjoerd: {Sjoerd:d}; Dcab: {Dcab:d}'.format(**table))
   Jack: 4098; Sjoerd: 4127; Dcab: 8637678

This is particularly useful in combination with the built-in function
"vars()", which returns a dictionary containing all local variables:

   >>> table = {k: str(v) for k, v in vars().items()}
   >>> message = " ".join([f'{k}: ' + '{' + k +'};' for k in table.keys()])
   >>> print(message.format(**table))
   __name__: __main__; __doc__: None; __package__: None; __loader__: ...

As an example, the following lines produce a tidily aligned set of
columns giving integers and their squares and cubes:

   >>> for x in range(1, 11):
   ...     print('{0:2d} {1:3d} {2:4d}'.format(x, x*x, x*x*x))
   ...
    1   1    1
    2   4    8
    3   9   27
    4  16   64
    5  25  125
    6  36  216
    7  49  343
    8  64  512
    9  81  729
   10 100 1000

For a complete overview of string formatting with "str.format()", see
Format String Syntax.


7.1.3. Manual String Formatting
-------------------------------

Here’s the same table of squares and cubes, formatted manually:

   >>> for x in range(1, 11):
   ...     print(repr(x).rjust(2), repr(x*x).rjust(3), end=' ')
   ...     # Note use of 'end' on previous line
   ...     print(repr(x*x*x).rjust(4))
   ...
    1   1    1
    2   4    8
    3   9   27
    4  16   64
    5  25  125
    6  36  216
    7  49  343
    8  64  512
    9  81  729
   10 100 1000

(Note that the one space between each column was added by the way
"print()" works: it always adds spaces between its arguments.)

The "str.rjust()" method of string objects right-justifies a string in
a field of a given width by padding it with spaces on the left. There
are similar methods "str.ljust()" and "str.center()". These methods do
not write anything, they just return a new string. If the input string
is too long, they don’t truncate it, but return it unchanged; this
will mess up your column lay-out but that’s usually better than the
alternative, which would be lying about a value. (If you really want
truncation you can always add a slice operation, as in
"x.ljust(n)[:n]".)

There is another method, "str.zfill()", which pads a numeric string on
the left with zeros.  It understands about plus and minus signs:

   >>> '12'.zfill(5)
   '00012'
   >>> '-3.14'.zfill(7)
   '-003.14'
   >>> '3.14159265359'.zfill(5)
   '3.14159265359'


7.1.4. Old string formatting
----------------------------

The % operator (modulo) can also be used for string formatting. Given
"format % values" (where *format* is a string), "%" conversion
specifications in *format* are replaced with zero or more elements of
*values*. This operation is commonly known as string interpolation.
For example:

   >>> import math
   >>> print('The value of pi is approximately %5.3f.' % math.pi)
   The value of pi is approximately 3.142.

More information can be found in the printf-style String Formatting
section.


7.2. Reading and Writing Files
==============================

"open()" returns a *file object*, and is most commonly used with two
positional arguments and one keyword argument: "open(filename, mode,
encoding=None)"

   >>> f = open('workfile', 'w', encoding="utf-8")

The first argument is a string containing the filename.  The second
argument is another string containing a few characters describing the
way in which the file will be used.  *mode* can be "'r'" when the file
will only be read, "'w'" for only writing (an existing file with the
same name will be erased), and "'a'" opens the file for appending; any
data written to the file is automatically added to the end.  "'r+'"
opens the file for both reading and writing. The *mode* argument is
optional; "'r'" will be assumed if it’s omitted.

Normally, files are opened in *text mode*, that means, you read and
write strings from and to the file, which are encoded in a specific
*encoding*. If *encoding* is not specified, the default is platform
dependent (see "open()"). Because UTF-8 is the modern de-facto
standard, "encoding="utf-8"" is recommended unless you know that you
need to use a different encoding. Appending a "'b'" to the mode opens
the file in *binary mode*. Binary mode data is read and written as
"bytes" objects. You can not specify *encoding* when opening file in
binary mode.

In text mode, the default when reading is to convert platform-specific
line endings ("\n" on Unix, "\r\n" on Windows) to just "\n".  When
writing in text mode, the default is to convert occurrences of "\n"
back to platform-specific line endings.  This behind-the-scenes
modification to file data is fine for text files, but will corrupt
binary data like that in "JPEG" or "EXE" files.  Be very careful to
use binary mode when reading and writing such files.

It is good practice to use the "with" keyword when dealing with file
objects.  The advantage is that the file is properly closed after its
suite finishes, even if an exception is raised at some point.  Using
"with" is also much shorter than writing equivalent "try"-"finally"
blocks:

   >>> with open('workfile', encoding="utf-8") as f:
   ...     read_data = f.read()

   >>> # We can check that the file has been automatically closed.
   >>> f.closed
   True

If you’re not using the "with" keyword, then you should call
"f.close()" to close the file and immediately free up any system
resources used by it.

Warning:

  Calling "f.write()" without using the "with" keyword or calling
  "f.close()" **might** result in the arguments of "f.write()" not
  being completely written to the disk, even if the program exits
  successfully.

After a file object is closed, either by a "with" statement or by
calling "f.close()", attempts to use the file object will
automatically fail.

   >>> f.close()
   >>> f.read()
   Traceback (most recent call last):
     File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
   ValueError: I/O operation on closed file.


7.2.1. Methods of File Objects
------------------------------

The rest of the examples in this section will assume that a file
object called "f" has already been created.

To read a file’s contents, call "f.read(size)", which reads some
quantity of data and returns it as a string (in text mode) or bytes
object (in binary mode). *size* is an optional numeric argument.  When
*size* is omitted or negative, the entire contents of the file will be
read and returned; it’s your problem if the file is twice as large as
your machine’s memory. Otherwise, at most *size* characters (in text
mode) or *size* bytes (in binary mode) are read and returned. If the
end of the file has been reached, "f.read()" will return an empty
string ("''").

   >>> f.read()
   'This is the entire file.\n'
   >>> f.read()
   ''

"f.readline()" reads a single line from the file; a newline character
("\n") is left at the end of the string, and is only omitted on the
last line of the file if the file doesn’t end in a newline.  This
makes the return value unambiguous; if "f.readline()" returns an empty
string, the end of the file has been reached, while a blank line is
represented by "'\n'", a string containing only a single newline.

   >>> f.readline()
   'This is the first line of the file.\n'
   >>> f.readline()
   'Second line of the file\n'
   >>> f.readline()
   ''

For reading lines from a file, you can loop over the file object. This
is memory efficient, fast, and leads to simple code:

   >>> for line in f:
   ...     print(line, end='')
   ...
   This is the first line of the file.
   Second line of the file

If you want to read all the lines of a file in a list you can also use
"list(f)" or "f.readlines()".

"f.write(string)" writes the contents of *string* to the file,
returning the number of characters written.

   >>> f.write('This is a test\n')
   15

Other types of objects need to be converted – either to a string (in
text mode) or a bytes object (in binary mode) – before writing them:

   >>> value = ('the answer', 42)
   >>> s = str(value)  # convert the tuple to string
   >>> f.write(s)
   18

"f.tell()" returns an integer giving the file object’s current
position in the file represented as number of bytes from the beginning
of the file when in binary mode and an opaque number when in text
mode.

To change the file object’s position, use "f.seek(offset, whence)".
The position is computed from adding *offset* to a reference point;
the reference point is selected by the *whence* argument.  A *whence*
value of 0 measures from the beginning of the file, 1 uses the current
file position, and 2 uses the end of the file as the reference point.
*whence* can be omitted and defaults to 0, using the beginning of the
file as the reference point.

   >>> f = open('workfile', 'rb+')
   >>> f.write(b'0123456789abcdef')
   16
   >>> f.seek(5)      # Go to the 6th byte in the file
   5
   >>> f.read(1)
   b'5'
   >>> f.seek(-3, 2)  # Go to the 3rd byte before the end
   13
   >>> f.read(1)
   b'd'

In text files (those opened without a "b" in the mode string), only
seeks relative to the beginning of the file are allowed (the exception
being seeking to the very file end with "seek(0, 2)") and the only
valid *offset* values are those returned from the "f.tell()", or zero.
Any other *offset* value produces undefined behaviour.

File objects have some additional methods, such as "isatty()" and
"truncate()" which are less frequently used; consult the Library
Reference for a complete guide to file objects.


7.2.2. Saving structured data with "json"
-----------------------------------------

Strings can easily be written to and read from a file.  Numbers take a
bit more effort, since the "read()" method only returns strings, which
will have to be passed to a function like "int()", which takes a
string like "'123'" and returns its numeric value 123.  When you want
to save more complex data types like nested lists and dictionaries,
parsing and serializing by hand becomes complicated.

Rather than having users constantly writing and debugging code to save
complicated data types to files, Python allows you to use the popular
data interchange format called JSON (JavaScript Object Notation).  The
standard module called "json" can take Python data hierarchies, and
convert them to string representations; this process is called
*serializing*.  Reconstructing the data from the string representation
is called *deserializing*.  Between serializing and deserializing, the
string representing the object may have been stored in a file or data,
or sent over a network connection to some distant machine.

Note:

  The JSON format is commonly used by modern applications to allow for
  data exchange.  Many programmers are already familiar with it, which
  makes it a good choice for interoperability.

If you have an object "x", you can view its JSON string representation
with a simple line of code:

   >>> import json
   >>> x = [1, 'simple', 'list']
   >>> json.dumps(x)
   '[1, "simple", "list"]'

Another variant of the "dumps()" function, called "dump()", simply
serializes the object to a *text file*.  So if "f" is a *text file*
object opened for writing, we can do this:

   json.dump(x, f)

To decode the object again, if "f" is a *binary file* or *text file*
object which has been opened for reading:

   x = json.load(f)

Note:

  JSON files must be encoded in UTF-8. Use "encoding="utf-8"" when
  opening JSON file as a *text file* for both of reading and writing.

This simple serialization technique can handle lists and dictionaries,
but serializing arbitrary class instances in JSON requires a bit of
extra effort. The reference for the "json" module contains an
explanation of this.

See also:

  "pickle" - the pickle module

  Contrary to JSON, *pickle* is a protocol which allows the
  serialization of arbitrarily complex Python objects.  As such, it is
  specific to Python and cannot be used to communicate with
  applications written in other languages.  It is also insecure by
  default: deserializing pickle data coming from an untrusted source
  can execute arbitrary code, if the data was crafted by a skilled
  attacker.
