Python Program to Read Character by Character from a File
In this article, we will demonstrate how to read a file character by character using practical examples.
Example:
Input: Geeks
Output: G
e
e
k
s
Explanation: Iterated through character by character from the input as shown in the output.
Below is the sample text file:
Read character by character from a file
In this approach, we read one character at a time using the read(1) method, which is useful when processing files where each character needs to be analyzed individually, such as parsing or text analysis tasks.
file = open('file.txt', 'r')
while 1:
char = file.read(1)
if not char:
break
print(char)
file.close()
Output
Explanation:
- file.read(1): Reads one character at a time from the file.
- while 1: Creates an infinite loop to process the file character by character.
- if not char: break: Stops the loop when end of file (EOF) is reached.
Reading more than one character
This method reads a fixed number of characters (e.g., 5) at a time using read(n), which helps improve efficiency when working with larger files while still maintaining controlled reading.
with open('file.txt') as f:
while True:
c = f.read(5)
if not c:
break
print(c)
Output
Explanation:
- f.read(5): Reads 5 characters at a time.
- while True: Loops until end of file.
- if not c: break: Stops at EOF.
