Python Programming On Win32

Reading and Writing Files

The win32file module has functions for reading and writing files. Not surprisingly, win32file.ReadFile() reads files, and win32file.WriteFile() writes files.

win32file.ReadFile() takes the following parameters:

• The file handle to read from

• The size of the data to read (see the reference for further details)

• Optionally, an OVERLAPPED or None

win32file.ReadFile() returns two pieces of information in a Python tuple: the error code for ReadFile and the data itself. The error code is either zero or the value winerror.ERROR_IO_PENDING if overlapped I/O is being performed. All other error codes are trapped and raises a Python exception.

win32file.WriteFile() takes the following parameters:

• A file handle opened to allow reading

• The data to write

• Optionally, an OVERLAPPED or None

win32file.WriteFile() returns the error code from the operation. This is either zero or win32error.ERROR_IO_PENDING if overlapped I/O is used. All other error codes are converted to a Python exception.