Path: ...!weretis.net!feeder8.news.weretis.net!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!not-for-mail
From: "Loris Bennett" <loris.bennett@fu-berlin.de>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
Subject: Re: Using 'with open(...) as ...' together with configparser.ConfigParser.read
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2024 07:47:17 +0100
Organization: FUB-IT, Freie =?utf-8?Q?Universit=C3=A4t?= Berlin
Lines: 42
Message-ID: <87y124db0q.fsf@zedat.fu-berlin.de>
References: <87plnj3te6.fsf@zedat.fu-berlin.de>
	<slrnvi2035.372.jon+usenet@raven.unequivocal.eu>
	<87bjz1vj2c.fsf@zedat.fu-berlin.de>
	<slrnvi4ksp.372.jon+usenet@raven.unequivocal.eu>
	<87r07xtwg7.fsf@zedat.fu-berlin.de>
	<slrnvi4ss3.372.jon+usenet@raven.unequivocal.eu>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
X-Trace: news.uni-berlin.de B74uJ9wHShGnPjA/GB2n6wzLV2jzGfYeE2Ja4tHtnMbog/
Cancel-Lock: sha1:K5zqQyPTkSHDK9CYlaJxusfeeZA= sha1:K2GF0BkAPCe7tfp/A6WeXG9mrzM= sha256:xvZNyRa5fsufs4kx554CL9W9jyBmB4nSY3z9MgvUtI4=
User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/28.2 (gnu/linux)
Bytes: 3086

Jon Ribbens <jon+usenet@unequivocal.eu> writes:

> On 2024-10-30, Loris Bennett <loris.bennett@fu-berlin.de> wrote:
>> Jon Ribbens <jon+usenet@unequivocal.eu> writes:
>>> On 2024-10-30, Loris Bennett <loris.bennett@fu-berlin.de> wrote:
>>>> Jon Ribbens <jon+usenet@unequivocal.eu> writes:
>>>>> As per the docs you link to, the read() method only takes filename(s)
>>>>> as arguments, if you have an already-open file you want to read then
>>>>> you should use the read_file() method instead.
>>>>
>>>> As you and others have pointed out, this is indeed covered in the docs,
>>>> so mea culpa.
>>>>
>>>> However, whereas I can see why you might want to read the config from a
>>>> dict or a string, what would be a use case in which I would want to
>>>> read from an open file rather than just reading from a file(name)?
>>>
>>> The ConfigParser module provides read(), read_file(), read_string(),
>>> and read_dict() methods. I think they were just trying to be
>>> comprehensive. It's a bit non-Pythonic really.
>>
>> OK, but is there a common situation might I be obliged to use
>> 'read_file'?  I.e. is there some common case where the file name is not
>> available, only a corresponding file-like object or stream?
>
> Well, sure - any time it's not being read from a file. A bit ironic
> that the method to use in that situation is "read_file", of course.
> In my view the read() and read_file() methods have their names the
> wrong way round. But bear in mind this code is 27 years old, and
> the read() function came first.

Yes, I suppose history has a lot to answer for :-)

However I didn't make myself clear: I understand that there are
different functions, depending on whether I have a file name or a
stream.  Nevertheless, I just can't think of a practical example where I
might just have *only* a stream, especially one containing my
configuration data.  I was just interested to know if anyone can give an
example.

-- 
This signature is currently under constuction.