accepting file path or file object?

[Ulrich Eckhardt]

Am 05.11.2012 11:54, schrieb andrea crotti:
> Quite often I find convenient to get a filename or a file object as
> argument of a function, and do something as below:
>
> def grep_file(regexp, filepath_obj):
>      """Check if the given text is found in any of the file lines, take
>      a path to a file or an opened file object
>      """
>      if isinstance(filepath_obj, basestring):
>          fobj = open(filepath_obj)
>      else:
>          fobj = filepath_obj
>
>      for line in fobj:
>          if re.search(regexp, line):
>              return True
>
>      return False
>
> This makes it also more convenient to unit-test, since I can just pass
> a StringIO.

I do the same for the same reason, but I either pass in a file object or 
the actual data contained in the file, but not a path.


> But then there are other problems, for example if I pass a file
 > object is the caller that has to make sure to close the file
> handle..

I don't consider that a problem. If you open a file, you should do that 
in a with expression:

   with open(..) as f:
       found = grep_file(regex, f)

That is also the biggest criticism I have with your code, because you 
don't close the file after use. Another things is the readability of 
your code:

   grep_file("foo", "bar")

The biggest problem there is that I don't know which of the two 
arguments is which. I personally would expect the file to come first, 
although the POSIX grep has it opposite on the commandline. Consider as 
alternative:

   grep("foo", path="bar")
   with open(..) as f:
     grep("foo", file=f)
   with open(..) as f:
     grep("foo", data=f.read())

Using **kwargs, you could switch inside the function depending on the 
mode that was used, extract lines accordingly and match these against 
the regex.


Greetings!

Uli