New submission from Michael K Johnson <a1237+pyb...@danlj.org>: In python 2.6 (not 2.4, haven't checked 2.5), the __init__() method of the TarFile class calls the tell() method on the tar file, which doesn't work if you are reading from standard input or writing to standard output, two very reasonable things to do with a tar file.
While there are cases where it is logical to seek within a tar file, supporting those cases should not preclude the normal design case for tar archives of streaming reads/writes, including tar files being streamed between processes via pipes. If the tell() method is not implemented for the file object, then the seek() method of TarFile (and any other methods that can be implemented only for seekable files) can raise a reasonable exception. Note that this also means that the next() method should not need to seek() for non-seekable files; it should assume that it is at the correct block and read from there. ---------- components: Library (Lib) messages: 89206 nosy: johnsonm severity: normal status: open title: tarfile unnecessarily requires seekable files type: behavior versions: Python 2.6 _______________________________________ Python tracker <rep...@bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue6254> _______________________________________ _______________________________________________ Python-bugs-list mailing list Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-bugs-list/archive%40mail-archive.com
