[Tutor] A file containing a string of 1 billion random digits.

[Hugo Arts]

On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 3:34 PM, bob gailer <bgailer at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> You can only write strings to files. See 6.9 in the documentation:
> file.write(str) Write a string to the file b mode only affects how line ends
> are handled. See 2. Built-in Functions:
>
> The default is to use text mode, which may convert '\n' characters to a
> platform-specific representation on writing and back on reading. Thus, when
> opening a binary file, you should append 'b' to the mode value to open the
> file in binary mode, which will improve portability. (Appending 'b' is
> useful even on systems that don’t treat binary and text files differently,
> where it serves as documentation.)
>

me and Bob are in tune, it seems, I was composing the same message.

Would like to add that in python 3.x the 'b' does make a difference,
since read and write will use the 'bytes' type. Also, if you don't
mind a binary file, I would also like to suggest the following
non-python solution:

$ dd if=/dev/urandom of=rand_numbers.txt count=100MB

and adjust the count argument to your liking.

Hugo