Using “with open() as file” method, how to write more than once? [duplicate]

The w flag means “open for writing and truncate the file”; you’d probably want to open the file with the a flag which means “open the file for appending”. Also, it seems that you’re using Python 2. You shouldn’t be using the b flag, except in case when you’re writing binary as opposed to plain text content. In Python 3 your … Read more

How to comment out a block of code in Python [duplicate]

Python does not have such a mechanism. Prepend a # to each line to block comment. For more information see PEP 8. Most Python IDEs support a mechanism to do the block-commenting-with-pound-signs automatically for you. For example, in IDLE on my machine, it’s Alt+3 and Alt+4. Don’t use triple-quotes; as you discovered, this is for documentation strings not block comments, although it … Read more

How to open a file using the open with statement

Python allows putting multiple open() statements in a single with. You comma-separate them. Your code would then be: And no, you don’t gain anything by putting an explicit return at the end of your function. You can use return to exit early, but you had it at the end, and the function will exit without it. (Of course with functions that return … Read more

Understanding slice notation

It’s pretty simple really: There is also the step value, which can be used with any of the above: The key point to remember is that the :stop value represents the first value that is not in the selected slice. So, the difference between stop and start is the number of elements selected (if step is 1, the default). The other feature is that start or stop may be a negative number, which … Read more