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Python Regular Expressions in Python Introduction to Regular Expressions Basics

Once a file is open, how do you remove it from memory? file_object.()

Once a file is open, how do you remove it from memory?

file_object.()

1 Answer

Chris Freeman
MOD
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 68,423 Points

The short answer is to use the method file_object.close().

An idiom of Python is to use the with statement:

with open(filename, "r") as f:
    # some code that operates on f
    pass
    # when this code block exists, the `with` statement will automatically close the file `f`

# file is now closed. The variable `f` will still point at an object, but it can not be operated upon
>>> f
<_io.TextIOWrapper name='file_f' mode='r' encoding='UTF-8'>
>>> f.readlines()
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ValueError: I/O operation on closed file.
>>> f.closed
True
>>> f.__sizeof__()
192

If you need to delete the object entirely use del f.

Post back if you need more help. Good luck!!