How to read in the contents of a file in Python.

def rememberer(thing):
    with open("database.txt", "a") as file:
        file.write(thing+"\n")

def show():
    with open("database.txt") as file:
        for line in file:
            print(line)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    if sys.argv[1].lower() == '--list':
        show()
    else:
        rememberer(' '.join(sys.argv[1:]))

Run the following command to automatically add an item to the file:

python remember.py juice boxes

Reading Command

You can control the number of bytes read by passing in an integer.

with open("my_file.txt", "r") as file:
    file.read(10)

file.read(bytes=-1)
would read the entire contents of the file.

file.seek()
Relatedly, will move the read/write pointer to another part of the file.

file.readlines()
Reads the entire file into a list, with each line as a list item.