Gertjan Klein wrote: > Alf P. Steinbach wrote: > >> So with 'w+' the only way to get garbage is if 'read' reads beyond the end >> of >> file, or 'open' doesn't conform to the documentation. > > It does read beyond the end of file. This is perhaps the way the > underlying C library works, but it looks like an "unexpected feature" > (read: bug) to me. > > I reproduced (with Python 2.5.2 on WinXP) the code the OP wrote after > creating an empty (0-byte) test file; after the write() the read() > returns random garbage. I can't imagine why anyone would want that > behaviour. The file grew to be 4099 bytes after f.close(). I wrote > 'hello' to it, so the length of garbage added was 4094 bytes, which I > find a strange number also. > > I would have expected the read to return nothing. Can anyone explain or > even defend this behaviour? > > Gertjan.
I wonder, does it still happen if you open the file in binary mode? (Stick a "b" in the file mode.) It could be some Windows text mode craziness. -- -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
