File Handling in Python

- Text file: contains human-readable characters; can be opened by any text editor.
- Binary file: contains non-human-readable data in bytes; needs specific programs to access it.

Text file vs binary file:
- A text file consists of readable characters such as alphabets, numbers, and symbols. Its contents are stored as ASCII/Unicode byte values and can be opened in a text editor.
- A binary file stores data as bytes that do not represent readable characters. It may contain images, audio, video, executable files, etc., and needs specific software to read or write it.

- readline() reads one complete line from a file. If a number is given, it reads up to that many bytes, but not beyond the newline character.
- readlines() reads all lines from a file and returns them as a list of strings.

- write() writes a single string to a text file and returns the number of characters written.
- writelines() writes multiple strings from an iterable like a list or tuple, and it does not return the number of characters written.

The open() function is used to open a file in Python. It returns a file object/file handle that can be used for reading or writing.

Syntax:
```python
file_object = open(file_name, access_mode)
```

The read() method is used to read a specified number of bytes from a file.

Syntax:
```python
file_object.read(n)
```
If no argument or a negative value is given, it reads the entire file.

The seek() method is used to move the file object to a particular position in the file.

Syntax:
```python
file_object.seek(offset[, reference_point])
```
- `offset` = number of bytes to move
- `reference_point` = starting position: `0` beginning, `1` current position, `2` end of file

The dump() method of the pickle module is used to pickle a Python object and write it to a binary file.

Syntax:
```python
dump(data_object, file_object)
```

A text file opened in both read and write mode uses the mode `r+`.

Statement:
```python
file_object = open("example.txt", "r+")
```

A binary file opened in write mode uses the mode `wb`.

Statement:
```python
file_object = open("bfile.dat", "wb")
```

A text file opened in append and read mode uses the mode `a+`.

Statement:
```python
file_object = open("try.txt", "a+")
```