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+++ b/getting-started-files.rst	Thu Sep 16 12:10:16 2010 +0530
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+========
+ Script
+========
+
+Welcome to the tutorial on getting started with files. 
+
+{{{ Screen shows welcome slide }}}
+
+{{{ Show the outline for this tutorial }}} 
+
+In this tutorial we shall learn to read files, and do some basic
+actions on the file, like opening and reading a file, closing a
+file, iterating through the file line-by-line, and appending the
+lines of a file to a list. 
+
+{{{ switch back to the terminal }}}
+
+As usual, we start IPython, using 
+::
+
+  ipython -pylab 
+
+Let us first open the file, ``pendulum.txt`` present in
+``/home/fossee/``. 
+::
+
+  f = open('/home/fossee/pendulum.txt')
+
+``f`` is called a file object. Let us type ``f`` on the terminal to
+see what it is. 
+::
+
+  f
+
+The file object shows, the file which is open and the mode (read
+or write) in which it is open. 
+
+We shall first learn to read the whole file into a single
+variable. Later, we shall look at reading it line-by-line. We use
+the ``read`` method of ``f`` to read, all the contents of the file
+into the variable ``pend``. 
+::
+
+  pend = f.read()
+
+Now, let us see what is in ``pend``, by typing 
+::
+
+  print pend
+
+We can see that ``pend`` has all the data of file. Type just ``pend``
+to see more explicitly, what it contains. 
+::
+
+  pend
+
+%%1%% Pause the video here and split the variable into a list,
+``pend_list``, of the lines in the file and then resume the
+video. Hint, use the tab command to see what methods the string
+variable has. 
+
+#[punch: should this even be put? add dependency to strings LO,
+where we mention that strings have methods for manipulation. hint:
+use splitlines()]
+::
+
+  pend_list = pend.splitlines()
+
+  pend_list
+
+Now, let us learn to read the file line-by-line. But, before that
+we will have to close the file, since the file has already been
+read till the end. 
+#[punch: should we mention file-pointer?]
+
+Let us close the file opened into f.
+::
+
+  f.close()
+
+Let us again type ``f`` on the prompt to see what it shows. 
+::
+
+  f
+
+Notice, that it now says the file has been closed. It is a good
+programming practice to close any file objects that we have
+opened, after their job is done.
+
+Let us, now move on to reading files line-by-line. 
+
+%%1%% Pause the video here and re-open the file ``pendulum.txt``
+with ``f`` as the file object, and then resume the video.
+
+We just use the up arrow until we reach the open command and issue
+it again. 
+::
+
+  f = open('/home/fossee/pendulum.txt')
+
+Now, to read the file line-by-line, we iterate over the file
+object line-by-line, using the ``for`` command. Let us iterate over
+the file line-wise and print each of the lines. 
+::
+
+  for line in f:
+      print line
+
+As we already know, ``line`` is just a dummy variable, and not a
+keyword. We could have used any other variable name, but ``line``
+seems meaningful enough.
+
+Instead of just printing the lines, let us append them to a list,
+``line_list``. We first initialize an empty list, ``line_list``. 
+::
+
+  line_list = [ ]
+
+Let us then read the file line-by-line and then append each of the
+lines, to the list. We could, as usual close the file using
+``f.close`` and re-open it. But, this time, let's leave alone the
+file object ``f`` and directly open the file within the for
+statement. This will save us the trouble of closing the file, each
+time we open it. 
+
+for line in open('/home/fossee/pendulum.txt'):
+line_list.append(line)
+
+Let us see what ``line_list`` contains. 
+::
+
+  line_list
+
+Notice that ``line_list`` is a list of the lines in the file, along
+with the newline characters. If you noticed, ``pend_list`` did not
+contain the newline characters, because the string ``pend`` was
+split on the newline characters. 
+
+{{{ show the summary slide }}}
+
+That brings us to the end of this tutorial. In this tutorial we
+have learnt to open and close files, read the data in the files as
+a whole, using the read command or reading it line by line by
+iterating over the file object. 
+
+Thank you!   
+