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Need help to open a file in python

I don't know what's wrong here, all I'm trying to do is to open this file, but it says it can't find such a file or directory, however as I have highlighted on the side, the file is right there. I just want to open it. I have opened files before but never encountered this. I must have missed something, I checked online, and seems like my syntax is correct, but I don't know.
I get the same error when I try with "alphabetical_words" which is just a text file.

When open() function receives a relative path, it looks for that file relative to the current working directory. In other words: relative to the current directory from where the script is run. This can be any arbitrary location.
I guess what you want to do is look for alphabetical.csv file relative to the script location. To do that use the following formula:
from pathlib import Path
# Get directory of this script
THIS_DIR = Path(__file__).absolute().parent
# Get path of CSV file relative to the directory of this script
CSV_PATH = THIS_DIR.joinpath("alphabetical.csv")
# Open the CSV file using a with-block
with CSV_PATH.open(encoding="utf-8") as csvfile:
pass # Do stuff with opened file

You need to import csv. Then you can open the file as a csv file. For example,
with open ("alphabetical.csv", "r") as csvfile:
Then you can use the file.
Make sure the file is in your cwd.

Python [Errno 13] Permission denied:

I'm attempting to write a quick python script to iterate through all csv files in the current folder and remove the header row from them then store them in a separate folder.
The current working directory has four sample csv files and the python script. Once executed the script creates the HeaderRemoved directory.
It appears that once the folder is created the code that is attempting to read the files is trying to access the folder but looking at the code I'm not sure why it would be.
I'm on a windows machine at the moment.
import csv, os, argparse, string
from ctypes import *
os.makedirs('HeaderRemoved', exist_ok=True)
# Loop through files in the current working directory
for csvFile in os.listdir('.'):
if not csvFile.endswith('.csv'):
continue # Skips non-csv files
print ('Removing header from ' + csvFile + '...')
# Read in CSV skipping the first row
csvRows = []
csvFileObj = open(csvFile)
csvReader = csv.reader(csvFileObj)
for row in csvReader:
if csvReader.line_num == 1:
continue # Skips the first row
csvRows.append(row)
csvFileObj.close()
# Write out the CSV file
csvFileObj = open (os.path.join('HeaderRemoved', csvFile), 'w', newline='')
for row in csvRows:
csvWriter.writerow(row)
csvFileObj.close()
Sample output:
Removing header from examplefile_1.csv...
Removing header from examplefile_2.csv...
Removing header from examplefile_3.csv...
Removing header from examplefile_4.csv...
Traceback (most recent call last): File "atbs_csv_parse.py", line 14, in <module>
csvFileObj = open(csvFile) PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: 'HeaderRemoved'

In my case, I had opened the csv file via Excel and ran the script. Then this Permission denied exception occurred.
Just closed the opened file and run the script again :)

In my case, the same error was because I was passing a directory name instead the file name.
Maybe could be the same problem of others.

The file in the script is opened somewhere in the system. That is the reason for getting "PermissionError : [Error 13]".
Solution:
Just close the file and run the script. You won't get the error.

As Charles Duffy commented under my original question, the issue was in fact that the lines of code for reading and writing the files had not been indented to fall within the for loop. Correcting the indentation fixed the issue and it now works as desired.
A good reminder to always check the simple things.... I got so wrapped up in why it wasn't working that I didn't even notice the lack of indentation.

If you are facing the problem where you can use the csv file with hard coded path but can't use with the windows directory or file path as the pandas or other library do not have the permission to use that object diectly, to so you have to convert it to stirng and use. I faced this issue and this solution worked for me.
from pathlib import Path
cur_dir=Path.cwd()
#cwd = os.getcwd()
csv_path=str(cur_dir)+"\\..\\Dataset\\FuelConsumptionCo2.csv"
df = pd.read_csv(csv_path)

Creating new file in python causes FileNotFoundError

Im trying to create a random set of files from a list of file names in python 3.
#!/usr/local/bin/python3
import random
import sys
random.seed()
print("Reading lines from ", sys.argv[1])
linecount = 0
lines = []
with open(sys.argv[1]) as f:
for line in f:
lines.append(line)
filelist = random.sample(lines, 5);
for newfile in filelist:
print("Touching file ", newfile)
open(newfile.rstrip(), "a+")
This always fails for the first file with:
$ : ./file-gen.py files.txt
Reading lines from files.txt
Touching file 62/6226320DE.pdf
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "./file-gen.py", line 19, in <module>
open(newfile.rstrip(), "a+");
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '62/6226320DE.pdf'
Any ideas what's missing?

I believe the problem is that the file mode a+ will create the file if its not present, but not the directory. You would have to write custom code to split the line of the filename from the path (or better still use os.path : https://docs.python.org/2/library/os.path.html, perhaps even os.path.dirname(path)
Have a look at: How to check if a directory exists and create it if necessary?
Be wary of security considerations of creating random paths in your system. Validating that the paths are inside a particular sandbox (consider someone putting an entry in your file of ../../ or /etc/passwd to get you to append random user data.. os.path.abspath can be useful - for this reason I am wary of pasting code which will just create random directories that you copy and paste in without considering that effect.

I would suggest as a first step trying to open a specific file rather than a random set of files from the input to rule out permissions and path problems.
You should also try printing os.path.getcwd() to make sure that you have write permissions there.

Python can't find file

I am having great difficulty getting python 3.4 to recognize a path or text file on a windows 8 system. I have tried a variety of different approaches but get the similar errors (which likely implies something simple regarding the syntax).
The file itself is located in the same folder as the script file trying to open it:
C:\Users\User\Desktop\Python stuff\Data.txt
for simplicity, the simplest means to access the file (at least that I know of) is
f=open
These lines were coded as:
f = open("Data.txt", "r")
and
f = open("C:/Users/User/Desktop/Python stuff/Data.txt", "r")
but return the error:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Users\User\Desktop\Python stuff\Testscript.py", line 3, in <module>
f = open("C:/Users/User/Desktop/Python stuff/Data.txt", "r")
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'C:/Users/User/Desktop/Python stuff/Data.txt'

Please check your current directory.
For that just do this:
import os
print (os.getcwd())

I had this same issue. I was using VS Code for my IDE, and had the folder setting to a folder above where I had the file. This obviously was the issue. Once I opened the folder in VScode where the code and the text file were both located I was able to open the file with no issues.

When using Windows you want to keep in mind that if you name the file data.txt the file will actually be data.txt.txt, however Windows will show it as data.txt because windows hides the file extensions by default. This option can be changed by following the steps in the first comment.
If you then search data.txt there really is no such file.

for f = open("Data.txt", "r")
Make sure your .py and .txt files are in the same directory.
for f = open("C:/Users/User/Desktop/Python stuff/Data.txt", "r")
I think the space in Python stuff is messing things up.
Update: I just tried this out .. seems to be fine with the space actually.
>>> [i for i in open('/Users/pk-msrb/projects/temp/temp es/temp.txt')]
['1\n', '2\n', '3\n', '\n']

The problem might be, where exactly you are executing the file.
I had the same problem, but noticed, that the terminal in my IDE (VS Code) is executing the file in a different location. By simply cd to the files location in the terminal, everything went fine. ;)

I had the same problem but now it works for me. I used to open a big map with a lot of sub-maps and the file was in one of the sub-maps. Now I open the submap where my program and file.txt is located and the code open("file.txt", "r") works

I know this is an old question, but here is another option.
set your parent_folder if you have multiple files in the same folder:
parent folder = "C:/Users/User/Desktop/"
extend the folder if necessary:
import os.path
folder = os.path.join( parent_folder, "python stuff" )
add the filename:
file = os.path.join( folder, "Data.txt" )
open the file:
if os.path.exists( file ):
with open( file, "r" ) as infile:
data = infile.read()
or:
import os
import os.path
# get the desktop location ( since this is a special folder )
desktop = os.path.join(( os.environ["userprofile"] ), "desktop" )
file = os.path.join( desktop, "python stuff", "data.txt" )
if os.path.exists( file ):
with open( file, "r" ) as infile:
data = infile.read()

I had a similar issue when using vs code. If you use the built-in green triangle to run, it seems to be able to run the code but it doesn't know where to look for the file. open an integrated terminal to the correct folder and run from the terminal line. Seems like something vs code could figure out...

I had the same problem with pyCharm. I found out that you sometimes have to specify the directory by going to edit config and working directory

Try creating a file using:
f = open("myfile.txt", "x")
Then search your computer for "myfile.txt" which is the file you just created.
Wherever the location of the file is, that is where your code is reading from :)

error "no such file or directory" when reading in csv file in python

Currently I am trying to read in a csv file using the csv module in python. When I run the piece of code below I get an error that states the file does not exist. My first guess is that maybe, I have the file saved in the wrong place or I need to provide pyton with a file path. currently I have the file saved in C:\Documents and Settings\eag29278\My Documents\python test code\test_satdata.csv.
one side note im note sure wether having set the mode to 'rb' (read binary) was the right move.
import csv
with open('test_satdata.csv', 'rb') as csvfile:
satreader = csv.reader(csvfile, delimiter=' ', lineterminator=" ")
for row in satreader:
print ', '.join(row)
Here is the errror code.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:/Python27/test code/test csv parse.py", line 2, in <module>
with open('test_satdata.csv', 'rb') as csvfile:
IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'test_satdata.csv'

Your code is using a relative path; python is looking in the current directory (whatever that may be) to load your file. What the current directory is depends on how you started your Python script and if you executed any code that may have changed the current working directory.
Use a full absolute path instead:
path = r'C:\Documents and Settings\eag29278\My Documents\python test code\test_satdata.csv'
with open(path, 'rb') as csvfile:
Using 'rb' is entirely correct, the csv module recommends you do so:
If csvfile is a file object, it must be opened with the ‘b’ flag on platforms where that makes a difference.
Windows is such a platform.

You can hit this error when you're running a Python script from a Directory where the file is not contained.
Sounds simple to fix, put the CSV file in the same folder as the .PY file. However when you're running under an IDE like VSCode the command output might cd to another directory when it executes your python file.
PS C:\git\awesome> cd 'c:\git\awesome'; ${env:PYTHONIOENCODING}='UTF-8'; ${env:PYTHONUNBUFFERED}='1';
& 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Python37-32\python.exe' 'c:\Users\jeremy\.vscode\extensions\ms-python.python-2019.9.34911\pythonFiles\ptvsd_launcher.py'
'--default' '--client' '--host' 'localhost' '--port' '1089'
'c:\git\Project\ReadCSV.py'
See how I'm in my awesome repo and the first command is: cd 'c:\git\awesome';
Then it executes the python file: 'c:\git\Project\ReadCSV.py'
So its expecting the CSV file in 'c:\git\awesome'.
To fix it, either use the full file names or CD to the directory containing the CSV file you wish to read.

Your current guess is right: either put the file in your test code directory or point python to the right path.

Make a fresh rename of your folder. That worked for me.