The Effortless Way to Append to a File in Python

A Beginner’s Guide to Mastering File Handling

Photo by Arthur Mazi on Unsplash

Writing to files is a fundamental skill in Python programming, and appending data to an existing file is a common task. Whether you’re logging data, saving user inputs, or building a database, the ability to append to a file can be a game-changer.

In this article, we’ll explore the simplest and most efficient way to append to a file in Python, complete with up-to-date code examples.

Opening a File for Appending

Before we can append data to a file, we need to open it in the appropriate mode. Python provides several modes for opening files, and the mode we’ll use for appending is 'a' (short for "append"). Here's how it works:

file = open('filename.txt', 'a')

This line of code opens the file named 'filename.txt' in append mode. If the file doesn't exist, Python will create a new one for you. If the file already exists, Python will position the cursor at the end of the file, ready for you to append new data.

Writing to the File

Once you’ve opened the file in append mode, you can use the write() method to add new data to the end of the file. Here's an example: