[Python-Dev] file() or open()? (original) (raw)

Paul Prescod paul at prescod.net
Wed Jul 7 17:14:23 CEST 2004

Guido van Rossum wrote:

I recently saw a checkin that changed a call to open() into a call to file(), suggesting that using file() is more "politically correct" than open().

I'm not sure I agree with this. While open() and file() are currently aliases for the same object, this may not always be the case (it certainly wasn't always the case :-).

I presumed file() was preferred to open() for the simple reason that it says more explicitly what you are doing. You are constructing a file object. "open()" doesn't say whether you are opening a file or socket or window or folder or ...

open made sense in a Unix world where "everything was a file" (except that even then it wasn't really) but it is a poor name for the file opening function in a 21st century language.

Paul Prescod

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