Astropy provides a unified interface for reading and writing data in different formats. For many common cases this will simplify the process of file I/O and reduce the need to master the separate details of all the I/O packages within Astropy. For details and examples of using this interface see the Unified file read/write interface section.
The Table class includes two methods, read() and write(), that make it possible to read from and write to files. A number of formats are automatically supported (see Built-in readers/writers) and new file formats and extensions can be registered with the Table class (see I/O Registry (astropy.io.registry)).