Reading a whole text file at once: read()

read() returns a string with all contents of the file

The text file file.txt:

This is the first line.
This is the second line.

is read by:

aFile = file("file.txt", "r")  # open the file
                               # for reading

aString = aFile.read()         # read the file

aFile.close()                  # close the file
                               # for reading
print aString

printing:

This is the first line.
This is the second line.