[Python-ideas] Boolean value of file object? (original) (raw)

Antoine Pitrou solipsis at pitrou.net
Sun Jan 8 02:20:32 CET 2012

On Sat, 7 Jan 2012 17:07:13 -0800 Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org> wrote:

Just an off-the-wall thought.

Is there any reason a file object's boolean value shouldn't be false once it's been closed? This would allow replacing "if f and f.closed:" (to make sure you have a file and it's open) with just "if f:". Is there some use case where you want to verify that an object is a file object instead of None (or another false value), and don't care if it's closed?

That sounds just too smart. It is not obvious that a file should become "false" once it is closed. Writing "f.closed" OTOH is explicit and obvious.

Regards

Antoine.

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