title: Python basics- why aren't the contents of my file printing?
body: <p>I'm running this from eclipse, the file name I'm working with is ex16_text.txt (yes I type it in correctly.  It writes to the file correctly (the input appears), but the  "print txt.read()" doesn't seem to do anything (prints a blank line), see the output after the code:</p>
  
  <pre><code>filename = raw_input("What's the file name we'll be working with?")
  
  print "we're going to erase %s" % filename
  
  print "opening the file"
  target = open(filename, 'w')
  
  print "erasing the file"
  target.truncate()
  
  print "give me 3 lines to replace file contents:"
  
  line1 = raw_input("line 1: ")
  line2 = raw_input("line 2: ")
  line3 = raw_input("line 3: ")
  
  print "writing lines to file"
  
  target.write(line1+"\n")
  target.write(line2+"\n")
  target.write(line3)
  
  #file read
  txt = open(filename)
  
  print "here are the contents of the %s file:" % filename
  print txt.read()
  
  target.close()
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Output:</p>
  
  <p>What's the file name we'll be working with?ex16_text.txt
  we're going to erase ex16_text.txt
  opening the file
  erasing the file
  give me 3 lines to replace file contents:
  line 1: three
  line 2: two 
  line 3: one
  writing lines to file
  here are the contents of the ex16_text.txt file:</p>