Getting the full contents of a file

The preferred method of file i/o is to use the with keyword. This will ensure the file handle is closed once the reading or writing has been completed.

with open('myfile.txt') as in_file:
    content = in_file.read()

print(content)

or, to handle closing the file manually, you can forgo with and simply call close yourself:

in_file = open('myfile.txt', 'r')
content = in_file.read()
print(content)
in_file.close()

Keep in mind that without using a with statement, you might accidentally keep the file open in case an unexpected exception arises like so:

in_file = open('myfile.txt', 'r')
raise Exception("oops")
in_file.close()  # This will never be called