Question

I’m writing a program that allows the user to create a username and password. How do I write this as a dictionary into a text file, and then retrieve it when I need it? Also, if there is an easier way to do this I’m welcome to any new ideas.

Answer 1

Use Python serialization mechanism – pickle.

Small example:

>>> import pickle
>>> s = pickle.dumps({'username': 'admin', 'password': '123'})
>>> s
"(dp0\nS'username'\np1\nS'admin'\np2\nsS'password'\np3\nS'123'\np4\ns."

Now you can easily save content of s to some file. After that you can read it and decode:

>>> pickle.loads(s)
{'username': 'admin', 'password': '123'}

But this approach is not quite safe. Don’t use it for dangerous data or data that you rely on.

Check out “Why Python Pickle is Insecure” by Nadia Alramli.