Python - When to use file vs open

Question

What\'s the difference between file and open in Python? When should I use which one? (Say I\'m in 2.5)

Answer 1

Two reasons: The python philosophy of "There ought to be one way to do it" and file is going away.

file is the actual type (using e.g. file('myfile.txt') is calling its constructor). open is a factory function that will return a file object.

In python 3.0 file is going to move from being a built-in to being implemented by multiple classes in the io library (somewhat similar to Java with buffered readers, etc.)