[Python-Dev] file() or open()?

orbitz orbitz at ezabel.com
Wed Jul 7 02:43:05 CEST 2004


I have always used open() myself. does this mean we should continue to 
use open()?  I only use it because that is what I first started using  
and don't know any better.


Guido van Rossum wrote:

>I recently saw a checkin that changed a call to open() into a call to
>file(), suggesting that using file() is more "politically correct"
>than open().
>
>I'm not sure I agree with this.  While open() and file() are currently
>aliases for the same object, this may not always be the case (it
>certainly wasn't always the case :-).  In the future, I could see
>open() become a factory function again that could return an instance
>of a different class depending on the mode argument, the default
>encoding for files, or who knows what; but file will always remain a
>class.
>
>--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)
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