How to read text file with 1Ah char in it?

Question

I have a file, which is an assembly source with comments. These comments contain 1Ah character. It is a control character, the "substitute", but it also prints a nice right arrow in DOS, so someone long time ago thought it would be a shame not to use it.

Somehow, it works like end of file character for Python. All I do is:

f = open('file.asm')
for line in f:
    print line
f.close()

And everything goes ok just until the first entrance of 1Ah.

The question is, how to read this symbol along with other text?

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/405058/line-reading-chokes-on-0x1a — DevZer0, Jun 13 '13 at 12:39
Why do you say everything goes ok until the first entrance? What happens next? Break lines in places it shouldn't? — Paulo Bu, Jun 13 '13 at 12:39
@PauloBu, 1Ah is a good old `EOF` character - this is the cause of the problem. — ElmoVanKielmo, Jun 13 '13 at 12:42
This problem is on Windows only. User 'rb' file mode to avoid it. — Ber, Jun 13 '13 at 12:50

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 13 '13 at 12:40

2

Open the file using universal line ending support:

f = open('file.asm', 'rU')

This avoids opening the file in native-platform text mode (in the C call) and prevents Windows from interpreting the \x1a code point as a line break.

answered Jun 13 '13 at 12:40

Martijn Pieters

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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 13 '13 at 12:41

1

Try:

f = open('file.asm', 'rb')

It should open file in binary mode.

answered Jun 13 '13 at 12:41

ElmoVanKielmo

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How to read text file with 1Ah char in it?

2 Answers2