getting file size

[John Machin]

Tim Roberts wrote:
> Bob Smith <bob_smith_17280 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Are these the same:
> >
> >1. f_size = os.path.getsize(file_name)
> >
> >2. fp1 = file(file_name, 'r')
> >    data = fp1.readlines()
> >    last_byte = fp1.tell()
> >
> >I always get the same value when doing 1. or 2. Is there a reason I
> >should do both? When reading to the end of a file, won't tell() be
just
> >as accurate as os.path.getsize()?
>
> On Windows, those two are not equivalent. Besides the newline
conversion
> done by reading text files,

Doesn't appear to me to go wrong due to newline conversion:

Python 2.4 (#60, Nov 30 2004, 11:49:19) [MSC v.1310 32 bit (Intel)] on
win32
>>> import os.path
>>> txt = 'qwertyuiop\nasdfghjkl\nzxcvbnm\n'
>>> file('bob', 'w').write(txt)
>>> len(txt)
29
>>> os.path.getsize('bob')
32L ##### as expected
>>> f = file('bob', 'r')
>>> lines = f.readlines()
>>> lines
['qwertyuiop\n', 'asdfghjkl\n', 'zxcvbnm\n']
>>> f.tell()
32L ##### as expected

> the solution in 2. will stop as soon as it sees
> a ctrl-Z.

... and the value returned by f.tell() is not the position of the
ctrl-Z but more likely the position of the end of the current block --
which could be thousands/millions of bytes before the physical end of
the file.

Good ol' CP/M.

>
> If you used 'rb', you'd be much closer.

And be much less hassled when that ctrl-Z wasn't meant to mean EOF, it
just happened to appear in an unvalidated data field part way down a
critical file :-(