[Python-Dev] IO module improvements

[David Cournapeau]

On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 4:31 PM, Tres Seaver <tseaver at palladion.com> wrote:
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> Antoine Pitrou wrote:
>> Pascal Chambon <pythoniks <at> gmail.com> writes:
>>> By the way, I'm having trouble with the "name" attribute of raw files,
>>> which can be string or integer (confusing), ambiguous if containing a
>>> relative path, and which isn't able to handle the new case of my
>>> library, i.e opening a file from an existing file handle (which is ALSO
>>> an integer, like C file descriptors...)
>>
>> What is the difference between "file handle" and a regular C file descriptor?
>> Is it some Windows-specific thing?
>> If so, then perhaps it deserves some Windows-specific attribute ("handle"?).
>
> File descriptors are integer indexes into a process-specific table.

AFAIK, they aren't simple indexes in windows, and that's  partly why
even file descriptors cannot be safely passed between C runtimes on
windows (whereas they can in most unices).

David