Difference Between Modes A, A+, W, W+, and R+ in Built-In Open Function

Difference between modes a, a+, w, w+, and r+ in built-in open function?

The opening modes are exactly the same as those for the C standard library function fopen().

The BSD fopen manpage defines them as follows:

 The argument mode points to a string beginning with one of the following
 sequences (Additional characters may follow these sequences.):

 ``r''   Open text file for reading.  The stream is positioned at the
         beginning of the file.

 ``r+''  Open for reading and writing.  The stream is positioned at the
         beginning of the file.

 ``w''   Truncate file to zero length or create text file for writing.
         The stream is positioned at the beginning of the file.

 ``w+''  Open for reading and writing.  The file is created if it does not
         exist, otherwise it is truncated.  The stream is positioned at
         the beginning of the file.

 ``a''   Open for writing.  The file is created if it does not exist.  The
         stream is positioned at the end of the file.  Subsequent writes
         to the file will always end up at the then current end of file,
         irrespective of any intervening fseek(3) or similar.

 ``a+''  Open for reading and writing.  The file is created if it does not
         exist.  The stream is positioned at the end of the file.  Subse-
         quent writes to the file will always end up at the then current
         end of file, irrespective of any intervening fseek(3) or similar.

Confused by python file mode w+

Let's say you're opening the file with a with statement like you should be. Then you'd do something like this to read from your file:

with open('somefile.txt', 'w+') as f:
    # Note that f has now been truncated to 0 bytes, so you'll only
    # be able to read data that you write after this point
    f.write('somedata\n')
    f.seek(0)  # Important: return to the top of the file before reading, otherwise you'll just read an empty string
    data = f.read() # Returns 'somedata\n'

Note the f.seek(0) -- if you forget this, the f.read() call will try to read from the end of the file, and will return an empty string.

What's the difference between 'r+' and 'a+' when open file in python?

Python opens files almost in the same way as in C:

• r+ Open for reading and writing. The stream is positioned at the beginning of the file.

• a+ Open for reading and appending (writing at end of file). The file is created if it does not exist. The initial file position for reading is at the beginning of the file, but output is appended to the end of the file (but in some Unix systems regardless of the current seek position).

What is the difference between rb and r+b modes in file objects

r+ is used for reading, and writing mode. b is for binary.
r+b mode is open the binary file in read or write mode.

You can read more here.

What's the difference between opening a file for update and just appending?

The opening modes are exactly the same that C fopen() std library function.

The BSD fopen manpage defines them as follows:

 ``a''   Open for writing.  The file is created if it does not exist.  The
         stream is positioned at the end of the file.  Subsequent writes
         to the file will always end up at the then current end of file,
         irrespective of any intervening fseek(3) or similar.

 ``a+''  Open for reading and writing.  The file is created if it does not
         exist.  The stream is positioned at the end of the file.  Subse-
         quent writes to the file will always end up at the then current
         end of file, irrespective of any intervening fseek(3) or similar.

The only difference between a and a+ is that a+ allows reading of files.

See this post for more info.

Open files in 'rt' and 'wt' modes

t refers to the text mode. There is no difference between r and rt or w and wt since text mode is the default.

Documented here:

Character   Meaning
'r'     open for reading (default)
'w'     open for writing, truncating the file first
'x'     open for exclusive creation, failing if the file already exists
'a'     open for writing, appending to the end of the file if it exists
'b'     binary mode
't'     text mode (default)
'+'     open a disk file for updating (reading and writing)
'U'     universal newlines mode (deprecated)

The default mode is 'r' (open for reading text, synonym of 'rt').

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