AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'write' when adding a string to a txt.file

Question

I am trying to learn how to open txt.files on Python 3.7. I have a file (Days.txt) with the following content:

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

On Jupyter, I used the following code:

f = open('Days.txt','r').read()
f

which gave me the following result:

'Monday\nTuesday\nWednesday\nThursday\nFriday\nSaturday\nSunday'

so far, so good.

Then, I tried to add a sentence to the Days.txt file by:

f.write('this is a test\n')

and that's where I get the below error message:

AttributeError Traceback (most recent call last) in ----> 1 f.write('this is a test\n')

AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'write'

Why isn't it working?

The code below results in another error message:

file = open('Days.txt','r')
s = file.read()
file.write('this is a test\n')
file.close()

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
UnsupportedOperation                      Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-138-0cc4cd12a8b3> in <module>
      1 file = open('Days.txt','r')
      2 s = file.read()
----> 3 file.write('this is a test\n')
      4 file.close()

UnsupportedOperation: not writable

It shows that f is actually a string. Before trying to write, check type(f). Also, when reading files it is a good practice doing it inside a with clause, like with open(days.txt) as f: ..... And finally when appending things to the end of file you need to specify the 'a' parameter, like f.write('text', 'a') — Ivan Calderon
– Ivan Calderon, Commented Jul 15, 2021 at 13:45

Djaouad · Accepted Answer · 2021-07-15 13:43:12Z

1

Because f is a string, not the file pointer, it's better to keep the file pointer in its own variable:

f = open('Days.txt', 'r')

s = f.read() # <-- check the content if you need it
print(s)

f.write('this is a test\n')

f.close() # <-- remember to close the file

Better yet to automatically close the file:

with open('Days.txt', 'r') as f:
    s = f.read()
    print(s)
    
    f.write('this is a test\n')

answered Jul 15, 2021 at 13:43

Djaouad

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BB2010 · Accepted Answer · 2021-07-15 14:26:19Z

0

Open the file in write mode to allow adding new contents to it. To do so, just

f = open("Days.txt", "a")
f.write("This is a text\n")
f.close()

Remember to close the file handler after opening it. I however suggest you to use the "with" construct, that automatically closes the file handler after the read/write operation

with open("Days.txt", "a") as f:
    f.write("This is a text\n")

answered Jul 15, 2021 at 14:26

BB2010

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