python file API

[Thomas Rachel]

Am 25.09.2012 09:28 schrieb Steven D'Aprano:

>> The whole concept is incomplete at one place: self.seek(10, 2) seeks
>> beyond EOF, potentially creating a sparse file. This is a thing you
>> cannot achieve.
>
> On the contrary, since the pos attribute is just a wrapper around seek,
> you can seek beyond EOF easily:
>
> f.pos = None
> f.pos += 10

Yes, from a syscall perspective, it is different: it is a tell() 
combined with a seek set instead of a relative seek. As someone 
mentionned, e. g. in the case of a streamer tape this might make a big 
difference.


> But for anything but the most trivial usage, I would recommend sticking
> to the seek method.

ACK. This should be kept as a fallback.


> ... or we need multiple attributes, one for each mode ...

Yes. That's what I would favourize: 3 attributes which each take a value 
to be passed to seek.

> So all up, I'm -1 on trying to replace the tell/seek API, and -0 on
> adding a second, redundant API.

ACK.


Thomas