Reference.md

In general, to create or retrieve a file on your local system you must use the open command. Open has a few different "modes" so let's go through them now.

1 Create a file with the w mode

w means write as in write-mode. First let's define a random path to a filename that does not yet exist.

to_save_dir = "/path/to/save/in/"
filename = "myfilename.txt"
full_path = to_save_dir + filename

Now let's open() that path so we can save it.

with open(full_path, 'w') as file_object:
    file_object.write("Hello world")

If we don't want to use with we just have to explicitly close the open call.

file_object = open(full_path, 'w')
file_object.write("Hello World")
file_object.save()

2 Open a file with the r mode

r means write as in write-mode. First let's define a random path to a filename that already exists (we created it above).

to_save_dir = "/path/to/save/in/"
filename = "myfilename.txt"
full_path = to_save_dir + filename

with open(full_path, 'r') as file_object:
    contents = file_object.read()
    print(contents)

If we don't want to use with we just have to explicitly close the open call.

file_object = open(full_path, 'r')
contents = file_object.read()
print(contents)
contents.close()

3 Download files

def download_file(url, directory, fname=None):
    if fname == None:
        fname = os.path.basename(url)
    dl_path = os.path.join(directory, fname)
    with requests.get(url, stream=True) as r:
        with open(dl_path, 'wb') as f:
            shutil.copyfileobj(r.raw, f)
    return new_dl_path