> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.macilib.org/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.macilib.org/docs/maci/functions/maci.loadraw.md).

# maci.loadraw

### loading a file raw

Loads any raw data from a file and returns a string by default, or optionally bytes. This is helpful to easily load file data without writing extra boilerplate code just to load raw data from a file.

{% hint style="info" %}
maci.loadraw  ->  str | bytes
{% endhint %}

*Basic Example of loading a file using default positional parameter*

```python
data = maci.loadraw('my.data')
```

In this example, we simply load raw data from a file using the loadraw function and pass a string of the filepath to the file as an argument to the function to load the raw data, and assign the returned data to a variable. 

*Example viewing the data and its original representation*

```python
print(data)
print(repr(data))
```

### parameters & arguments

Describes all parameter functionality and accepted data types

<details>

<summary>filename:  str | Path</summary>

First and only required positional argument. Accepts strings and [Path objects](https://docs.python.org/3/library/pathlib.html)

Use this parameter to point to your filepath

</details>

<details>

<summary>byte_data:  bool</summary>

Optional parameter. Accepts booleans. Default = False

Use this parameter to set loading your data from the file as bytes. Default is disabled as returning file data as a string is more common, but enable it if you need the data returned as bytes.

</details>

<details>

<summary>encoding:  str | None</summary>

Optional parameter. Accepts strings or None. Default = None

Use this parameter to load the data with the desired codec of the encoded data if needed. The default uses the default of python, so you don't have to use this, but you can if the data is using a specific codec.

</details>