Write a list to a file in python

Python allows us to work with different data structures and write them to an external file.

In this tutorial, we will learn how to write a list to a file in Python. If you want write list to CSV file, you can refer write list to CSV in Python.

Table of Contents

Using the write() function to write a list to a file in Python
Using the writelines() function to write a list to a file in Python
Using the pickle.dump() function to write a list to a file in Python
Using the json.dump() function to write a list to a file in Python
Using the unpack operator * to write a list to a file in Python
Using the numpy.savetxt() function to write a list to a file in Python

Using the `write()` function to write a list to a file in Python

The write() function is used to write contents to a file in Python. We use the open() function to create a file object and open it in write mode. We can iterate through the list and write every element individually.

We implement this in the following code.

lst = ["We","Love","Python"]

with open(r'Desktop\Manav\Article\sample1.txt', 'w') as f:

for item in lst:

f.write("%s\n" % item)

Output
Here is output of the program.

You need to change r'Desktop\Manav\Article\sample1.txt' to the path where you want to write list.

The %s is used to specify that the item is a string and \n adds a new line after every element.

Instead of iterating through the list, we can also use the join() function. The join() function will combine all the elements of the list after separating them with a specified character.

For example,

lst = ["We","Love","Python"]

with open('sample1.txt', 'w') as f:

f.write("\n".join(lst))

When we open a file in write mode (using w), it clears the contents of the given file. If a file contains some contents and we want to preserve it then we should open the file in append mode.

See the code below.

lst = ["We","Love","Python"]

with open('sample1.txt', 'a') as f:

f.write("\n".join(lst))

This way, we start writing the data to the list to the end of the file, without clearing any data which is present earlier.

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Write a list to a file in python

Using the `write()` function to write a list to a file in Python

Further reading:

Python write to text file

Python read file into String

Using the `writelines()` function to write a list to a file in Python

Using the `pickle.dump()` function to write a list to a file in Python

Using the `json.dump()` function to write a list to a file in Python

Using the unpack operator `*` to write a list to a file in Python

Using the `numpy.savetxt()` function to write a list to a file in Python

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