Bugs item #1432343, was opened at 2006-02-15 18:49 Message generated for change (Comment added) made by yohell You can respond by visiting: https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=105470&aid=1432343&group_id=5470
Please note that this message will contain a full copy of the comment thread, including the initial issue submission, for this request, not just the latest update. Category: Documentation Group: None Status: Open Resolution: None Priority: 5 Submitted By: Grant Edwards (grante) Assigned to: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody) Summary: Description of file-object read() method is wrong. Initial Comment: There are two errors in the documentation of the file object's read() method found at http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/bltin-file-objects.html#l2h-242 Suggested changes (unindented) are shown below interspersed with the current text with insertions noted by a '+' in the first column: Read at most size bytes from the file (less if the read hits EOF before obtaining size bytes). If the size argument is negative or omitted, read all data until EOF is reached. + Under some circumstances (e.g. system call aborted by + a signal) read() called with a negative or absent size + argument may return data before EOF is reached (even in + blocking mode). The bytes are returned as a string object. An empty string is returned when EOF is encountered immediately. (For certain files, like ttys, it makes sense to continue reading after an EOF is hit.) The last sentence above (the parenthetical one) is false for Linux/Unix. Once you hit EOF on a tty, it will return EOF forever until it's closed and re-opened. If the above sentence is true for other OSes, I suggest it be so qualified -- otherwise it should just be deleted. Note that this method may call the underlying C function fread() more than once in an effort to acquire as close to size bytes as possible. Also note that when in non-blocking mode, less data than what was requested may be returned, even if no size parameter was given. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: YoHell (yohell) Date: 2006-02-16 12:17 Message: Logged In: YES user_id=1008220 Well spoken! However I'm not sure I quite follow you here: > The last sentence above (the parenthetical one) is false > for Linux/Unix. Once you hit EOF on a tty, it will return > EOF forever until it's closed and re-opened. A quote from Donn Cave in a discussion on comp.lang.python: """ They were probably thinking of the way the UNIX tty driver delivers an EOF on <ctrl>D, after which of course you can continue to read data from the same tty. """ This is also true for the Linux tty (afaik), so under those circumstances it may really make sense to continue reading past EOF. example: ------------------------------------------------- #!/usr/bin/python import sys while True: s = sys.stdin.read() print s ------------------------------------------------- Pressing Ctrl-D while providing input to sys.stdin via the keyboard will cause sys.stdin.read() to return, and you will still be able to keep reading from sys.stdin without closing and reopening it explicitly. But then again I might have missed something. /Joel Hedlund ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: Grant Edwards (grante) Date: 2006-02-15 18:51 Message: Logged In: YES user_id=61937 Well, that didn't work very well. I really hate these web interfaces. I've attached the suggested changes as a text file. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can respond by visiting: https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=105470&aid=1432343&group_id=5470 _______________________________________________ Python-bugs-list mailing list Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-bugs-list/archive%40mail-archive.com
