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Python gotcha

Don’t ever do this unless it’s really what you want:

import os

def some_func(fd):
    f = os.fdopen(fd, 'w')
    f.write('abc')

fd = get_some_fd()
some_func(fd)
some_other_func(fd)

Here’s what goes wrong: when some_func comes to an end, f (which is a file-like objects) goes out of scope, is destructed, which causes fd to be closed. I think this is pretty weird behavior (an object closing an fd it didn’t open itself), but well.

Here’s a better version, for reference:

def some_func(fd):
    f = os.fdopen(os.dup(fd), 'w')
    #Use f here

Try this on fd 0/1/2 in an (I)Python shell ;-)

Posted in Development.

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3 Responses

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  1. Josh Stone says

    The issue has nothing to do with Python per se — that’s the way fdopen() is defined in libc. The man-page directly says, “The file descriptor is not dup’ed, and will be closed when the stream created by fdopen() is closed.”

    But yes, I can see how this might be a surprising effect…

  2. willem says

    Josh is right. This is normal behavior. You should make it a habit to dup() the file descriptor :)

  3. Eugene says

    I am looking for some idea and stumble upon your posting :) decide to wish you Thanks. Eugene



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