How to read/write from/to file using Go?
Let's make a Go 1-compatible list of all the ways to read and write files in Go.
Because file API has changed recently and most other answers don't work with Go 1. They also miss bufio
which is important IMHO.
In the following examples I copy a file by reading from it and writing to the destination file.
Start with the basics
package main
import (
"io"
"os"
)
func main() {
// open input file
fi, err := os.Open("input.txt")
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
// close fi on exit and check for its returned error
defer func() {
if err := fi.Close(); err != nil {
panic(err)
}
}()
// open output file
fo, err := os.Create("output.txt")
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
// close fo on exit and check for its returned error
defer func() {
if err := fo.Close(); err != nil {
panic(err)
}
}()
// make a buffer to keep chunks that are read
buf := make([]byte, 1024)
for {
// read a chunk
n, err := fi.Read(buf)
if err != nil && err != io.EOF {
panic(err)
}
if n == 0 {
break
}
// write a chunk
if _, err := fo.Write(buf[:n]); err != nil {
panic(err)
}
}
}
Here I used os.Open
and os.Create
which are convenient wrappers around os.OpenFile
. We usually don't need to call OpenFile
directly.
Notice treating EOF. Read
tries to fill buf
on each call, and returns io.EOF
as error if it reaches end of file in doing so. In this case buf
will still hold data. Consequent calls to Read
returns zero as the number of bytes read and same io.EOF
as error. Any other error will lead to a panic.
Using bufio
package main
import (
"bufio"
"io"
"os"
)
func main() {
// open input file
fi, err := os.Open("input.txt")
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
// close fi on exit and check for its returned error
defer func() {
if err := fi.Close(); err != nil {
panic(err)
}
}()
// make a read buffer
r := bufio.NewReader(fi)
// open output file
fo, err := os.Create("output.txt")
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
// close fo on exit and check for its returned error
defer func() {
if err := fo.Close(); err != nil {
panic(err)
}
}()
// make a write buffer
w := bufio.NewWriter(fo)
// make a buffer to keep chunks that are read
buf := make([]byte, 1024)
for {
// read a chunk
n, err := r.Read(buf)
if err != nil && err != io.EOF {
panic(err)
}
if n == 0 {
break
}
// write a chunk
if _, err := w.Write(buf[:n]); err != nil {
panic(err)
}
}
if err = w.Flush(); err != nil {
panic(err)
}
}
bufio
is just acting as a buffer here, because we don't have much to do with data. In most other situations (specially with text files) bufio
is very useful by giving us a nice API for reading and writing easily and flexibly, while it handles buffering behind the scenes.
Note: The following code is for older Go versions (Go 1.15 and before). Things have changed. For the new way, take a look at this answer.
Using ioutil
package main
import (
"io/ioutil"
)
func main() {
// read the whole file at once
b, err := ioutil.ReadFile("input.txt")
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
// write the whole body at once
err = ioutil.WriteFile("output.txt", b, 0644)
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
}
Easy as pie! But use it only if you're sure you're not dealing with big files.
This is good version:
package main
import (
"io/ioutil";
)
func main() {
contents,_ := ioutil.ReadFile("plikTekstowy.txt")
println(string(contents))
ioutil.WriteFile("filename", contents, 0644)
}
Using io.Copy
package main
import (
"io"
"log"
"os"
)
func main () {
// open files r and w
r, err := os.Open("input.txt")
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
defer r.Close()
w, err := os.Create("output.txt")
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
defer w.Close()
// do the actual work
n, err := io.Copy(w, r)
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
log.Printf("Copied %v bytes\n", n)
}
If you don't feel like reinventing the wheel, the io.Copy
and io.CopyN
may serve you well. If you check the source of the io.Copy function, it is nothing but one of the Mostafa's solutions (the 'basic' one, actually) packaged in the Go library. They are using a significantly larger buffer than he is, though.