How many file objects would you need to create to manage the following situations ? Explain.

(i) to process three files sequentially

(ii) to merge two sorted files into a third file.

(i) To process three files sequentially — In this scenario, where we need to process three files sequentially, we would need a single file object, as we can reuse a single file object by opening then processing and closing it for each file sequentially.

For example :

f = open("file1.txt", "r")
# Process file 1 using f
f.close()

f = open("file2.txt", "r")
# Process file 2 using f
f.close()

f = open("file3.txt", "r")
# Process file 3 using f
f.close()

Here, we are reusing the f file object three times sequentially. We start by opening file1 in read mode and store its file handle in file object f. We process file1 and close it. After that, same file object f is again reused to open file 2 in read mode and process it. Similarly, for file3 also we reuse the same file object f.

(ii) To merge two sorted files into a third file — In this scenario, where we need to merge two sorted files into a third file, we would need three file objects, one for each input file and one for the output file. We would open each input file for reading and the output file for writing. Then, we would read data from the input files, compare the data, and write the merged data to the output file. Finally, we would close all three files after the merging operation is complete.

For example :

f1 = open("file1.txt", "r")
f2 = open("file2.txt", "r")
f3 = open("merged.txt", "w")
# Read line from f1
# Read line from f2
# Process lines
# Write line to f3
f1.close()
f2.close()
f3.close()