CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonfileseek
KarmaPeasant
KarmaPeasant

Reputation: 103

How can it be that "not all file objects are seekable", according to pydoc?

I ran "pydoc file.seek" and this line from documentation puzzled me. "Note that not all file objects are seekable." As far as I understand, "not seekable" means "you can't use seek, even if you have access permission". I don't understand, how is it even possible? How can there be a file objects that can't be seekable?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1083

Answers (1)

tripleee
tripleee

Reputation: 189739

A file on disk is always seekable, but the file handle abstraction does not apply only to files on a local disk. Unidirectional information streams like pipes, network sockets etc are only there for you as long as you keep them buffered or in memory; unless you have saved the information yourself, you cannot go back and refetch a client's response to you from five minutes ago.

Upvotes: 2

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