file parameter of Python’s print() Function

print() function in Python3 supports a ‘file‘ argument, which specifies where the function should write a given object(s) to. If not specified explicitly, it is sys.stdout by default.

It serves two essential purposes:

Print to STDERR
Print to external file

Note : The ‘file’ parameter is found only in Python 3.x or later.

Printing to STDERR :

Specify the file parameter as sys.stderr instead of the default value. This is very useful when debugging a small program (It would be better to use a debugger in other cases).

# Code for printing to STDERR
import sys

print('GeeksForGeeks', file = sys.stderr)

Output :

GeeksForGeeks

Printing to a specific file :

Instead of the default value, specify the file parameter with the name of the required file. If the file does not exist, a new file by that name is created and written to.

# Code for printing to a file
sample = open('samplefile.txt', 'w')

print('GeeksForGeeks', file = sample)
sample.close()

Output (in “samplefile.txt”) :

GeeksForGeeks

Note : Try this in interpreter on your system, since such file can’t be accessed on Online IDE.

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