seek() and tell() methods in Python

The seek and tell methods in Python are used for manipulating the current position of the file pointer in a file.

seek() method

The seek method allows you to move the file pointer to a specific position in the file. You can use it to reposition the file pointer to a specific location, so that subsequent reads or writes will start from that position. Syntax:

file.seek(offset, from_where)

The seek method takes two arguments: the first is the offset from the beginning of the file, and the second is an optional reference point that specifies where the offset is relative to. By default, the reference point is the beginning of the file. The offset can be positive (to move the pointer forward) or negative (to move the pointer backward).

with open("file.txt", "r") as f: print(f.read(5)) # Prints the first 5 characters of the file f.seek(5) # Move the file pointer to the 6th character print(f.read(5)) # Prints the next 5 characters of the file


file pointers in python seek() tell()

tell() method

The tell method returns the current position of the file pointer, in bytes from the start of the file. The position is an integer that represents the number of bytes from the beginning of the file. Syntax:

file.tell()

You can use it to determine the current position of the file pointer, for example, to keep track of how much of a file has been processed.

with open("file.txt", "r") as f: print(f.read(5)) # Prints the first 5 characters of the file print("Current position:", f.tell()) # Prints the current position of the file pointer f.seek(5) # Move the file pointer to the 6th character print(f.read(5)) # Prints the next 5 characters of the file

Note that when you open a file in text mode, the tell method returns the number of characters, not the number of bytes. In binary mode, the tell method returns the number of bytes.

Conclusion

The seek() and tell() methods are used for file cursor manipulation. The seek() method repositions the cursor to a specified byte offset, facilitating navigation within the file, while the tell() method returns the current cursor position. These methods aid in precise file navigation and data manipulation.






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