bpo-37635: Update arg name for seek() in IO tutorial (GH-16147)

miss-islington · aeros · web-flow · commit 4a71df88cdba · 2019-09-14T13:47:31.000-07:00
Typically, the second positional argument for ``seek()`` is *whence*. That is the POSIX standard name (http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man3/lseek.3p.html) and the name listed in the documentation for ``io`` module (https://docs.python.org/3/library/io.htmlGH-io.IOBase.seek). The tutorial for IO is the only location where the second positional argument for ``seek()`` is referred to as *from_what*. I suspect this was created at an early point in Python's history, and was never updated (as this section predates the GitHub repository): ``` $ git grep "from_what" Doc/tutorial/inputoutput.rst:To change the file object's position, use ``f.seek(offset, from_what)``. The position is computed Doc/tutorial/inputoutput.rst:the *from_what* argument. A *from_what* value of 0 measures from the beginning Doc/tutorial/inputoutput.rst:the reference point. *from_what* can be omitted and defaults to 0, using the ``` For consistency, I am suggesting that the tutorial be updated to use the same argument name as the IO documentation and POSIX standard for ``seek()``, particularly since this is the only location where *from_what* is being used. Note: In the POSIX standard, *whence* is technically the third positional argument, but the first argument *fildes* (file descriptor) is implicit in Python. https://bugs.python.org/issue37635 (cherry picked from commit ff603f6) Co-authored-by: Kyle Stanley <aeros167@gmail.com>
diff --git a/Doc/tutorial/inputoutput.rst b/Doc/tutorial/inputoutput.rst
@@ -412,11 +412,11 @@ or a bytes object (in binary mode) -- before writing them::
 represented as number of bytes from the beginning of the file when in binary mode and
 an opaque number when in text mode.
 
-To change the file object's position, use ``f.seek(offset, from_what)``.  The position is computed
+To change the file object's position, use ``f.seek(offset, whence)``.  The position is computed
 from adding *offset* to a reference point; the reference point is selected by
-the *from_what* argument.  A *from_what* value of 0 measures from the beginning
+the *whence* argument.  A *whence* value of 0 measures from the beginning
 of the file, 1 uses the current file position, and 2 uses the end of the file as
-the reference point.  *from_what* can be omitted and defaults to 0, using the
+the reference point.  *whence* can be omitted and defaults to 0, using the
 beginning of the file as the reference point. ::
 
    >>> f = open('workfile', 'rb+')
