"print >> file" ok. What about "print > file" to truncate?

[Stephen Hansen]

There's one problem with that -- the >> construct allows you to print out
to any file-like object, not just files. And for objects which aren't real
files, 'truncate' doesn't nessecarily make any sense. For instance, what
does it mean to 'truncate' stderr? Or a user-defined class that immediately
processes/sends data as soon as you write to it?

Besides, it would be _WAY_ too easy accidentely delete a file if that
were the case. 

--Stephen

In article <39b2ae19.15922395 at news.accessone.com>, bokr at accessone.com
(Bengt Richter) wrote:

> IANAPP (I Am Not A Python Programmer), but truncating a file to zero
> length before writing can be useful. ">>" seems to mean "append"
> implicitly, so why not borrow the other redirection symbol? (No doubt
> you can accomplish this other ways, but not as concisely?)
> 
> Just my 2 cent reaction, on seeing a python news article at
> 
> http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/python/2000/08/30/pythonnews.html
> 
> as I was randomly surfing thereabouts.
>


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