File Handling

Programming · 4 question types

Exam Frequency Analysis

Past paper frequency (2018 to 2024)

This topic accounts for approximately 3% of your exam marks.

stable

Rare

Stable3%

OPENFILE, READFILE, WRITEFILE, CLOSEFILE pseudocode operations appear occasionally.

CIE pseudocode uses a small set of dedicated keywords for file operations.

Operation	Pseudocode	Python equivalent
Open for a given mode	`OPENFILE "filename.txt" FOR <mode>`	`file = open("filename.txt", "r")` (or `"w"`)
Read one line	`READFILE "filename.txt", LineVariable`	`line = file.readline()`
Write one line	`WRITEFILE "filename.txt", TextToWrite`	`file.write("text\n")`
Close the file	`CLOSEFILE "filename.txt"`	`file.close()`

The CIE file commands always include the filename so the operation knows which file it is acting on.