[FIXED] What is exactly a file-like object in Python?

Issue

In http://docs.python.org/library/json.html:

simplejson.load(fp[, encoding[, cls[, object_hook[, parse_float[, parse_int[, parse_constant[, object_pairs_hook[, use_decimal[, **kw]]]]]]]]])

Deserialize fp (a .read()-supporting file-like object containing a JSON document) to a Python object.

I do know what read() and write() do.

But after reading this description "read()-supporting file-like object", I find I don't know what object type supports the read() and write().

And I can't find that in the rest of documentation. Anyone could elaborate more on the statement?

Why I ask this question is for getting "simplejson.load(urllib.open(...))" done.
The return value of "urllib.open(...)" is not a valid object, so I have to tailor it for simplejson. However, it seems like that string is not read()-supporting.

Solution

File-like objects are mainly StringIO objects, connected sockets and, well, actual file objects.

If everything goes well, urllib.urlopen() returns a file-like object supporting the necessary methods.

Answered By - ThiefMaster