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authorFred Drake <fdrake@acm.org>1999-04-14 14:31:53 (GMT)
committerFred Drake <fdrake@acm.org>1999-04-14 14:31:53 (GMT)
commitf4cbada3f95c74e81e899c71eb8721a6c7819acc (patch)
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Correct documentation for <file>.read(); Python makes a serious
best-effort to return 'size' bytes. Point out that this may mean multiple fread() calls. Reported by Anders Hammarquist <iko@iko.pp.se> via the Debian crew.
Diffstat (limited to 'Doc')
-rw-r--r--Doc/lib/libstdtypes.tex14
1 files changed, 8 insertions, 6 deletions
diff --git a/Doc/lib/libstdtypes.tex b/Doc/lib/libstdtypes.tex
index a893a91..597aab1 100644
--- a/Doc/lib/libstdtypes.tex
+++ b/Doc/lib/libstdtypes.tex
@@ -753,12 +753,14 @@ descriptors, e.g. module \module{fcntl} or \function{os.read()} and friends.
\begin{methoddesc}[file]{read}{\optional{size}}
Read at most \var{size} bytes from the file (less if the read hits
- \EOF{} or no more data is immediately available on a pipe, tty or
- similar device). If the \var{size} argument is negative or omitted,
- read all data until \EOF{} is reached. The bytes are returned as a string
- object. An empty string is returned when \EOF{} is encountered
- immediately. (For certain files, like ttys, it makes sense to
- continue reading after an \EOF{} is hit.)
+ \EOF{} before obtaining \var{size} bytes). If the \var{size}
+ argument is negative or omitted, read all data until \EOF{} is
+ reached. The bytes are returned as a string object. An empty
+ string is returned when \EOF{} is encountered immediately. (For
+ certain files, like ttys, it makes sense to continue reading after
+ an \EOF{} is hit.) Note that this method may call the underlying
+ C function \cfunction{fread()} more than once in an effort to
+ acquire as close to \var{size} bytes as possible.
\end{methoddesc}
\begin{methoddesc}[file]{readline}{\optional{size}}