Function
codecs.open

Signature

open(filename, mode='rb', encoding=None, errors='strict', buffering=1)

Documentation String

Open an encoded file using the given mode and return a wrapped version providing transparent encoding/decoding.

Note: The wrapped version will only accept the object format defined by the codecs, i.e. Unicode objects for most builtin codecs. Output is also codec dependent and will usually by Unicode as well.

Files are always opened in binary mode, even if no binary mode was specified. This is done to avoid data loss due to encodings using 8-bit values. The default file mode is rb meaning to open the file in binary read mode.

encoding specifies the encoding which is to be used for the file.

errors may be given to define the error handling. It defaults to strict which causes ValueErrors to be raised in case an encoding error occurs.

buffering has the same meaning as for the builtin open() API. It defaults to line buffered.

The returned wrapped file object provides an extra attribute .encoding which allows querying the used encoding. This attribute is only available if an encoding was specified as parameter.