Frustrating circular bytes issue

[J]

This is driving me batty... more enjoyment with the Python3
"Everything must be bytes" thing... sigh...
I have a file that contains a class used by other scripts.  The class
is fed either a file, or a stream of output from another command, then
interprets that output and returns a set that the main program can
use...  confusing, perhaps, but not necessarily important.

The class is created and then called with the load_filename method:


 def load_filename(self, filename):
        logging.info("Loading elements from filename: %s", filename)

        file = open(filename, "rb", encoding="utf-8")
        return self.load_file(file, filename)

As you can see, this calls the load_file method, by passing the
filehandle and filename (in common use, filename is actually an
IOStream object).

load_file starts out like this:


def load_file(self, file, filename="<stream>"):
        elements = []
        for string in self._reader(file):
            if not string:
                break

            element = {}


Note that it now calls the private _reader() passing along the
filehandle further in.  THIS is where I'm failing:

This is the private _reader function:


def _reader(self, file, size=4096, delimiter=r"\n{2,}"):
        buffer_old = ""
        while True:
            buffer_new = file.read()
            print(type(buffer_new))
            if not buffer_new:
                break
            lines = re.split(delimiter, buffer_old + buffer_new)
            buffer_old = lines.pop(-1)

            for line in lines:
                yield line

        yield buffer_old


(the print statement is something I put in to verify the problem.

So stepping through this, when _reader executes, it executes read() on
the opened filehandle.  Originally, it read in 4096 byte chunks, I
removed that to test a theory.  It creates buffer_new with the output
of the read.

Running type() on buffer_new tells me that it's a bytes object.

However no matter what I do:

file.read().decode()
buffer_new.decode() in the lines = re.split() statement
buffer_str = buffer_new.decode()

I always get a traceback telling me that the str object has no decoe() method.

If I remove the decode attempts, I get a traceback telling me that it
can't implicitly convert a bytes_object to a str object.

So I'm stuck in a vicious circle and can't see a way out.

here's sample error messages:
When using the decode() method to attempt to convert the bytes object:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./filter_templates", line 134, in <module>
    sys.exit(main(sys.argv[1:]))
  File "./filter_templates", line 126, in main
    options.whitelist, options.blacklist)
  File "./filter_templates", line 77, in parse_file
    matches = match_elements(template.load_file(file), *args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/checkbox/lib/template.py", line
73, in load_file
    for string in self._reader(file):
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/checkbox/lib/template.py", line
35, in _reader
    lines = re.split(delimiter, buffer_old + buffer_new.decode())
AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'decode'

It's telling me that buffer_new is a str object.

so if I remove the decode():

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./run_templates", line 142, in <module>
    sys.exit(main(sys.argv[1:]))
  File "./run_templates", line 137, in main
    runner.process(args, options.shell)
  File "./run_templates", line 39, in process
    records = self.process_output(process.stdout)
  File "./run_templates", line 88, in process_output
    return template.load_file(output)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/checkbox/lib/template.py", line
73, in load_file
    for string in self._reader(file):
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/checkbox/lib/template.py", line
35, in _reader
    lines = re.split(delimiter, buffer_old + buffer_new)
TypeError: Can't convert 'bytes' object to str implicitly

now it's complaining that buffer_new is a bytes object and can't be
implicitly converted to str.

This is a bug introduced in our conversion from Python 2 to Python 3.
I am really, really starting to dislike some of the things Python3
does... or just am really, really frustrated.