Prepend line to beginning of a file

Question

I can do this using a separate file, but how do I append a line to the beginning of a file?

f=open('log.txt','a')
f.seek(0) #get to the first position
f.write("text")
f.close()

This starts writing from the end of the file since the file is opened in append mode.

Answer 1

To put code to NPE's answer, I think the most efficient way to do this is:

def insert(originalfile,string):
    with open(originalfile,'r') as f:
        with open('newfile.txt','w') as f2: 
            f2.write(string)
            f2.write(f.read())
    os.rename('newfile.txt',originalfile)

Answer 2

num = [1, 2, 3] #List containing Integers

with open("ex3.txt", 'r+') as file:
    readcontent = file.read()  # store the read value of exe.txt into 
                                # readcontent 
    file.seek(0, 0) #Takes the cursor to top line
    for i in num:         # writing content of list One by One.
        file.write(str(i) + "\n") #convert int to str since write() deals 
                                   # with str
    file.write(readcontent) #after content of string are written, I return 
                             #back content that were in the file

Answer 3

There's no way to do this with any built-in functions, because it would be terribly inefficient. You'd need to shift the existing contents of the file down each time you add a line at the front.

There's a Unix/Linux utility tail which can read from the end of a file. Perhaps you can find that useful in your application.

Answer 4

In modes 'a' or 'a+', any writing is done at the end of the file, even if at the current moment when the write() function is triggered the file's pointer is not at the end of the file: the pointer is moved to the end of file before any writing. You can do what you want in two manners.

1st way, can be used if there are no issues to load the file into memory:

def line_prepender(filename, line):
    with open(filename, 'r+') as f:
        content = f.read()
        f.seek(0, 0)
        f.write(line.rstrip('\r\n') + '\n' + content)

2nd way:

def line_pre_adder(filename, line_to_prepend):
    f = fileinput.input(filename, inplace=1)
    for xline in f:
        if f.isfirstline():
            print line_to_prepend.rstrip('\r\n') + '\n' + xline,
        else:
            print xline,

I don't know how this method works under the hood and if it can be employed on big big file. The argument 1 passed to input is what allows to rewrite a line in place; the following lines must be moved forwards or backwards in order that the inplace operation takes place, but I don't know the mechanism

Answer 5

In all filesystems that I am familiar with, you can't do this in-place. You have to use an auxiliary file (which you can then rename to take the name of the original file).

Answer 6

Different Idea:

(1) You save the original file as a variable.

(2) You overwrite the original file with new information.

(3) You append the original file in the data below the new information.

Code:

with open(<filename>,'r') as contents:
      save = contents.read()
with open(<filename>,'w') as contents:
      contents.write(< New Information >)
with open(<filename>,'a') as contents:
      contents.write(save)