[Python-Dev] file() vs open(), round 7

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 02:35 PM 12/27/2005 +0100, Fredrik Lundh wrote:
>M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
>
> >> can we add a opentext factory for file/codecs.open while we're at it ?
> >
> > Why a new factory function ? Can't we just redirect to codecs.open()
> > in case an encoding keyword argument is passed to open() ?!
>
>I think open is overloaded enough as it is.  Using separate functions for 
>distinct
>use cases is also a lot better than keyword trickery.
>
>Here's a rough draft:
>
>     def textopen(name, mode="r", encoding=None):
>         if "U" not in mode:
>             mode += "U"
>         if encoding:
>             return codecs.open(name, mode, encoding)
>         return file(name, mode)

Nice. It should probably also check whether there's a 'b' or 't' in 'mode' 
and raise an error if so.  I'd also prefer to call it 'textfile', as that 
reads more nicely with "for line in textfile(...):" use cases, and it does 
return a file object.