- How to Solve Python ValueError: I/O operation on closed file
- Why Close Files in Python?
- Example #1: Accessing a Closed File
- Solution
- Example #2: Placing Writing Outside of with Statment
- Solution
- Example #3: Closing the File Within a for loop
- Solution
- Summary
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- ValueError : I/O operation on closed file
- 6 Answers 6
- python: ValueError: I/O operation on closed file
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How to Solve Python ValueError: I/O operation on closed file
In Python, a value is information stored within a particular object. You will encounter a ValueError in Python when you use a built-in operation or function that receives an argument with the right type but an inappropriate value.
A file is suitable for I/O operations, but a closed file is not suitable for I/O operations.
Why Close Files in Python?
- File operations is a resource in programming. If you have multiple files open, you are using more resources, which will impact performance.
- If you are making editions to files, they often do not go into effect until after the file is closed.
- Windows treats open files as locked; you will not be able to access an open file with another Python script.
Let’s look at examples of the ValueError occurring in code and solve it.
Example #1: Accessing a Closed File
Consider the following CSV file called particles.csv that contains the name, charge and mass of three particles:
electron,-1, 0.511 muon,-1,105.7 tau,-1,1776.9
Next, we will write a program that will read the information from the CSV file and print it to the console. We will import the csv library to read the CSV file. Let’s look at the code:
import csv particles = open("particles.csv", "r") read_file = csv.reader(particles) particles.close() for p in read_file: print(f'Particle: , Charge: , Mass: MeV')
We create a TextIOWrapper object called particles. This object is a buffered text stream containing the file’s text. We then access each line in particles using a for loop. Let’s run the code to see what happens:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- ValueError Traceback (most recent call last) 7 particles.close() 8 ----≻ 9 for p in read_file: 10 11 print(f'Particle: , Charge: , Mass: MeV') ValueError: I/O operation on closed file.
The error occurs because we close the file before we iterate over it.
Solution
To solve this error, we need to place the close() after the for loop. Let’s look at the revised code:
import csv particles = open("particles.csv", "r") read_file = csv.reader(particles) for p in read_file: print(f'Particle: , Charge: , Mass: MeV') particles.close()
Particle: electron, Charge: -1, Mass: 0.511 MeV Particle: muon, Charge: -1, Mass: 105.7 MeV Particle: tau, Charge: -1, Mass: 1776.9 MeV
The code successfully prints the particle information to the console.
Example #2: Placing Writing Outside of with Statment
The best practice to open a file is to use a with keyword. This pattern is also known as a context manager, which facilitates the proper handling of resources. Let’s look at an example of using the with keyword to open our particles.csv file:
import csv with open("particles.csv", "r") as particles: read_file = csv.reader(particles) for p in read_file: print(f'Particle: , Charge: , Mass: MeV')
Let’s run the code to see what happens:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- ValueError Traceback (most recent call last) 5 read_file = csv.reader(particles) 6 ----≻ 7 for p in read_file: 8 9 print(f'Particle: , Charge: , Mass: MeV') ValueError: I/O operation on closed file.
The error occurs because the loop over the file is outside of the with open() statement. Once we place code outside of with statement code block, the file closes. Therefore the for loop is over a closed file.
Solution
We need to place the for loop within the with statement to solve this error. Let’s look at the revised code:
import csv with open("particles.csv", "r") as particles: read_file = csv.reader(particles) for p in read_file: print(f'Particle: , Charge: , Mass: MeV')
Let’s run the code to see the result:
Particle: electron, Charge: -1, Mass: 0.511 MeV Particle: muon, Charge: -1, Mass: 105.7 MeV Particle: tau, Charge: -1, Mass: 1776.9 MeV
The code successfully prints the particle information to the console. For further reading on ensuring correct indentation in Python, go to the article: How to Solve Python IndentationError: unindent does not match any outer indentation level.
Example #3: Closing the File Within a for loop
Let’s look at an example where we open the file and print the file’s contents, but we put a close() statement in the for loop.
import csv particles = open("particles.csv", "r") read_file = csv.reader(particles) for p in read_file: print(f'Particle: , Charge: , Mass: MeV') particles.close()
Let’s run the code to see what happens:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- ValueError Traceback (most recent call last) 5 read_file = csv.reader(particles) 6 ----≻ 7 for p in read_file: 8 9 print(f'Particle: , Charge: , Mass: MeV') ValueError: I/O operation on closed file.
The error occurs because we close the file before iterating over every line in the file. The first iteration closes the file.
Solution
To solve this error, we need to place the close() statement outside of the for loop. Let’s run the code to get the result:
import csv particles = open("particles.csv", "r") read_file = csv.reader(particles) for p in read_file: print(f'Particle: , Charge: , Mass: MeV') particles.close()
Let’s run the code to see the result:
Particle: electron, Charge: -1, Mass: 0.511 MeV Particle: muon, Charge: -1, Mass: 105.7 MeV Particle: tau, Charge: -1, Mass: 1776.9 MeV
The code successfully prints the particle information to the console.
Summary
Congratulations on reading to the end of this tutorial! The error ValueError: I/O operation on a closed file occurs when you try to access a closed file during an I/O operation. To solve this error, ensure that you indent the code that follows if you are using the with statement. Also, only close the file after you have completed all iterations in a for loop by placing the filename.close() outside of the loop.
For further reading on errors involving reading or writing to files in Python, go to the article: How to Solve Python AttributeError: ‘str’ object has no attribute ‘write’
To learn more about Python for data science and machine learning, go to the online courses page on Python for the most comprehensive courses available.
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ValueError : I/O operation on closed file
Here, p is a dictionary, w and c both are strings. When I try to write to the file it reports the error:
ValueError: I/O operation on closed file.
6 Answers 6
Indent correctly; your for statement should be inside the with block:
import csv with open('v.csv', 'w') as csvfile: cwriter = csv.writer(csvfile, delimiter=' ', quotechar='|', quoting=csv.QUOTE_MINIMAL) for w, c in p.items(): cwriter.writerow(w + c)
Outside the with block, the file is closed.
>>> with open('/tmp/1', 'w') as f: . print(f.closed) . False >>> print(f.closed) True
Same error can raise by mixing: tabs + spaces.
with open('/foo', 'w') as f: (spaces OR tab) print f
I also have the same problem. Here is my previous code
csvUsers = open('/content/gdrive/MyDrive/Ada/Users.csv', 'a', newline='', encoding='utf8') usersWriter = csv.writer(csvUsers) for t in users: NodeWriter=.writerow(users) csvUsers.close()
Apparently, I shoud write the usersWriter instead of NodeWriter.
NodeWriter=.writerow(users) usersWriter=.writerow(users)
Below is my current code and it is working
csvUsers = open('/content/gdrive/MyDrive/Ada/Users.csv', 'a', newline='', encoding='utf8') usersWriter = csv.writer(csvUsers) for t in users: usersWriter=.writerow(users) csvUsers.close()
file = open("filename.txt", newline='') for row in self.data: print(row)
Save data to a variable( file ), so you need a with .
I had this problem when I was using an undefined variable inside the with open(. ) as f: . I removed (or I defined outside) the undefined variable and the problem disappeared.
Another possible cause is the case when, after a round of copypasta, you end up reading two files and assign the same name to the two file handles, like the below. Note the nested with open statement.
with open(file1, "a+") as f: # something. with open(file2, "a+", f): # now file2's handle is called f! # attempting to write to file1 f.write("blah") # error!!
The fix would then be to assign different variable names to the two file handles, e.g. f1 and f2 instead of both f .
python: ValueError: I/O operation on closed file
Please fix your indentation. I suspect you are trying to write to f outside of your with block, which guarantees the file will be closed.
It's hard to tell due to the mangled indentation, but it looks like at the very least, you're trying to .write to a file handle that was opened for reading. I don't know if that would produce the error you're seeing though .
I have a feeling that in your real code your f.write is actually outside your with . Not only that, but once you get your indentation fixed, you are trying to write to your file, but you are in read mode. You have to open your file for writing as well.
One other comment . Why bother with f.close when you're using a context manager? practically the whole point of the context manager with file objects is that it calls close for you when the context is exited :-).
Performed all changes suggested, now am getting this error :Traceback (most recent call last): File "silwon.py", line 146, in
2 Answers 2
Every file operation in Python is done on a file opened in a certain mode. The mode must be specified as an argument to the open function, and it determines the operations that can be done on the file, and the initial location of the file pointer.
In your code, you have opened the file without any argument other than the name to the open function. When the mode isn't specified, the file is opened in the default mode - read-only, or 'r' . This places the file pointer at the beginning of the file and enables you to sequentially scan the contents of the file, and read them into variables in your program. To be able to write data into the file, you must specify a mode for opening the file which enables writing data into the file. A suitable mode for this can be chose from two options, 'w' or 'w+' and 'a' or 'a+' .
'w' opens the file and gives access to the user only to write data into the file, not to read from it. It also places the pointer at the beginning of the file and overwrites any existing data. 'w+' is almost the same, the only difference being that you can read from the file as well.
'a' opens the file for writing, and places the file pointer at the end of the file, so you don't overwrite the contents of the file. 'a+' extends the functionality of 'a' to allow reading from the file as well.
Use an appropriate mode of opening the file to suit your requirement, and execute it by modifying the open command to open('pass.txt', ) .