How to Check if it is the End of File in Python

John on April 29, 2021

If the end of the file (EOF) is reached in Python the data returned from a read attempt will be an empty string.

Let's try out two different ways of checking whether it is the end of the file in Python.

Calling the Read Method Again

We can call the Python .read() method again on the file and if the result is an empty string the read operation is at EOF.

Some content.
Another line of content.

open_file = open("file.txt", "r")
text = open_file.read()
eof = open_file.read()

if eof == '':
   print('EOF')

EOF

Read Each Line in a while Loop

Another option is to read each line of the file by calling the Python readline() function in a while loop. When an empty string is returned we will know it is the end of the file and we can perform some operation before ending the while loop.

Some content.
Another line of content.

path = 'file.txt'

file = open(path, 'r')

x = True

while x:
   line = file.readline()
   
   if not line:
       print('EOF')
       x = False

file.close()

EOF