[Tutor] code works in windows command but not ubuntu terminal

[Steven D'Aprano]

Hi Tobias, and welcome.

On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 07:34:18PM -0700, Tobias Quezada wrote:
> hello community,i am a newbie to python and program in general.
> the script below works in python 2.7.3 on windows but not in the python 2.7.3 ubuntu terminal.
> 
> >>> fp=open("prez.dat","r")
> >>> x=fp.read
> >>> (print(x)
>
> ***i used fp for file pointer.I am using windows 7 and it works

Are you sure this is the *exact* same code you use on Windows 7? Because 
it won't read the file, it will fail with a SyntaxError due to the 
missing close bracket after the print. 

Fixing that problem reveals another problem: rather than read the 
file, it will just print something like 
this:

<built-in method read of _io.TextIOWrapper object at 0xb7b6911c>

That's because you need round brackets (parentheses) to actually call 
the read method, otherwise you just get the method itself.

Finally we get to the error you have have reported:

> but on ubuntu 12.04 LTS i get this syntax error:
> Traceback (most recent call last):  
> File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
> IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'prez.dat'

That's not a syntax error. The problem is not with your code, but with 
the location of the file. There is no file called "prez.dat" in the 
current directory.

Possibly you have just forgotten to create the file, or you have 
forgotten that Ubuntu (like all Linux operating systems) are case 
sensitive and "prez.dat" will not match "Prez.DAT", or the file is in 
the wrong directory. You may need to use the cd command to go into the 
directory before starting Python.

Does this help solve your problem? Please feel free to ask if you have 
any further questions.


-- 
Steven