GoogleAppEngine: How to read text file using python?

Question

My project structure looks like

flask-appengine-template/
                        docs/
                        licenses/
                        src/
                            application/
                                        static/
                                        templates/
                                        models.py
                                        settings.py
                                        urls.py
                                        views.py
                                        english.txt
                        libs/
                            bs4/
                         app.yaml
                         src.py

in my views.py, I have a function that reads the file english.txt

      for words in open('english.txt', 'r').readlines():
            stopwords.append(words.strip())

When I run this on local environment, I see error in logs as

(<type 'exceptions.IOError'>, IOError(13, 'file not accessible'), <traceback object at 0x10c457560>)

How do I read this file in Google App Engine?

Might this question be relevant? http://stackoverflow.com/q/2630205/1947535 — m.brindley, Feb 03 '13 at 07:35
`open('english.txt','r')` -> `open('templates/english.txt','r')`? — Nirvana Tikku, Feb 03 '13 at 08:33
Try going from root of the application: `open('src/application/english.txt', 'r')` — Jernej Jerin, Feb 03 '13 at 09:50
convert the data from english.txt to english.py (containing a list of words) and import it. — Paulo Scardine, Feb 03 '13 at 11:59

Paulo Scardine · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-03T12:15:19.910

6

If english.txt is just a list of words, I suggest converting the list of words to a python list, so you can just import it.

If english.txt has more complex data, move it to bigtable or other database available to your app.

AppEngine is a very crippled environment compared to a standard VPS, I tend to avoid functions that operates over the underlying OS like open().

edited Feb 03 '13 at 12:15

answered Feb 03 '13 at 12:04

Paulo Scardine

73,447
11
124
153

I tried the way you suggested and it worked, Thank you @Paulo – daydreamer Feb 03 '13 at 16:00
@Paulo By _crippled_, you mean performance-wise or w.r.t. api support? When it comes to reading off the filesystem, don't templating libraries like `jinja` do just that all the time? – S B Oct 21 '17 at 06:59
This answer is quite old and somewhat outdated; the former "Platform as a Service" offer from GAE had several limitations compared to a VPS (for example, only pure Python libraries, limited I/O, etc). Nowadays I think they allow a kind of hybrid PaaS/IaaS approach where you can attach a network volume from GCP and do standard I/O in GAE. – Paulo Scardine Oct 23 '17 at 11:27

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 03 '13 at 18:51

You'll need to use os.path to get the proper reference to the file path, something along the lines of:

def read_words():
    import os.path
    folder = os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(__file__))
    file_path = os.path.join(folder, 'english.txt')
    for words in open(file_path, 'r').readlines():
        stopwords.append(words.strip())

Hope that helps!

GoogleAppEngine: How to read text file using python?

2 Answers2