[Python-ideas] file API

[MRAB]

On 2012-09-27 20:40, Jim Jewett wrote:
> On 9/24/12, Mark Adam <dreamingforward at gmail.com> wrote:
>> For some time now, I've wanted to suggest a better abstraction for the
>> <file> type in Python.  It currently uses an antiquated, low-level
>> C-style interface for moving around in a file, with methods like
>> tell() and seek().
>
> I agree, but I'm not sure the improvement can be *enough* of an
> improvement to justify the cost of change.
>
>>>>> file.pos = x0ae1       #move file pointer to an absolute address
>>>>> file.pos += 1             #increment the file pointer one byte
>
> For text files, I would expect it to be a character count rather than
> a byte count.  So this particular proposal might end up adding as much
> confusion as it hopes to remove.
>
In the talk about how to seek to the end of the file with file.pos, it
was suggested that negative positions and None could be used.

I wonder whether they could be used with seek. For example:

file.seek(-10)  # Seek 10 bytes from the end.
file.seek(None) # Seek to the end.