u07_slides-files-flashcards

Question 1

What is the purpose of file suffixes/extensions?

Answer 1

File suffixes indicate the file type (encoding/decoding schema) to the OS and are part of the filename - they help OS choose appropriate program to open the file

Question 2

How do Unix and Windows differ in directory hierarchy notation?

Answer 2

Unix uses / character and starts with root directory (/), while Windows uses \ character and starts with drive ID (e.g., C:)

Question 3

What is the difference between absolute and relative file paths?

Answer 3

Absolute paths include the root directory and are independent of working directory, while relative paths start from the current working directory

Question 4

What is the basic syntax for opening a file in Python?

Answer 4

filehandle = open(filename: str

Question 5

What does the ‘r’ mode do when opening a file?

Answer 5

Read-only mode - allows reading from file, fails if file doesn’t exist

Question 6

What does the ‘w’ mode do when opening a file?

Answer 6

(Over)Write-only mode - writes to file, creates new file if doesn’t exist or deletes original content if file exists

Question 7

What does the ‘a’ mode do when opening a file?

Answer 7

Append-only mode - writes to file, creates new file if doesn’t exist but keeps original content and appends new content to end

Question 8

What does the ‘r+’ mode do when opening a file?

Answer 8

Read and write mode - allows reading and writing from beginning of file, fails if file doesn’t exist

Question 9

What does the ‘a+’ mode do when opening a file?

Answer 9

Read and append mode - allows reading and writing to end of file, creates new file if doesn’t exist

Question 10

What’s the difference between text mode and binary mode when opening files?

Answer 10

Text mode interprets file as string and works with string objects, while binary mode works with raw bytes objects

Question 11

Why is it important to close files after opening them?

Answer 11

Written content is buffered and not necessarily saved until closed, files might be corrupted if program terminates before closing

Question 12

What is the preferred way to handle file operations in Python?

Answer 12

Using the ‘with’ statement which automatically closes the file (more convenient than try-finally blocks)

Question 13

How can you make file paths more portable across different operating systems?

Answer 13

Use relative paths and os.path.join() function instead of hard-coding directory separators

Question 14

What is the difference between pickle and dill modules?

Answer 14

Both can serialize Python objects, but dill extends pickle’s functionality and can store more types of Python objects

Question 15

What is the working directory?

Answer 15

The folder we are currently in when executing Python code

Question 16

How do you read entire file content as a string in Python?

Answer 16

Using read() method with file handle, e.g., content = f.read()

Question 17

What are the default stream positions for different file modes?

Answer 17

‘r’, ‘w’, ‘r+’ start at beginning of file; ‘a’, ‘a+’ start at end of file