Is anyone using Jython's open() and/or io.open()? Insights needed

Processing.py
1

I really think Processing’s loadStrings() and saveStrings() are super-great, and I use them all the time when I need to read text from and write text into a file.

But I’m writing some instructional materials and I wanted to give my readers a taste of Python’s common with open(file ... as f: idioms. Just in case they want to use other Python interpreters somewhere else.

For reading Unicode strings from a file io.open() seemed to work better than ‘normal’ open() (non-ASCII characters encoding came wrong otherwise):

from io import open as io_open
with io_open("data/my_unicode_strings.txt", 'r') as f:
    line_list = f.readlines()

Then, for wrinting strings… open() works fine, but io.open() doesn’t :frowning:

# from io import open   # not a good idea because
with open(output_path, 'w') as f:  # open(output_path, 'w', enconding='utf-8')  # not working for me
      for li in line_list:
          f.write(li + u'ãéíôú')   # works fine with 'normal' open()

So I’m a bit frustrated with this inconsistency. Any insights on what I might be missing?

Cheers!

2

Untested, but have you tried using codecs.open instead?

import codecs
f = codecs.open('unicode.rst', encoding='utf-8')
for line in f:
    print repr(line)

as documented in the Python 2 unicode howto?

https://docs.python.org/2/howto/unicode.html

1 Like
3

Thanks for caring. I will have a look!

But I guess It’s just a rant with no relevance. Few students will use these constructs I guess, and when using Python outside Processing they will have to look up anyway so I guess the small io_open to read vs open to write inconsistency will be irrelevant…

1 Like
4

It is an interesting point, though. If making it consistent had no downsides, it would be a clear win to build a change into Python mode.

But it seems like maybe making it consistent would confuse students about normal Python 2?

On the other hand, Python 2 is now very retired. So maybe that potential confusion is a minimal downside…

1 Like
5

I have not tested much, but documentation I’ve seen somewhere tells the Python 2 io.open should behave exactly like Python 3 open, so I was surprised I couldn’t make it work in write mode :confused: