print converts to string object automatically, but write to file doesn't and additional function needs to be called (on prettytable)

pepe@pepe-MS-7C90:~$ python3
Python 3.10.4 (main, Apr 2 2022, 09:04:19) [GCC 11.2.0] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

import prettytable
x = PrettyTable()
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "", line 1, in
NameError: name 'PrettyTable' is not defined. Did you mean: 'prettytable'?
x = prettytable.PrettyTable()
print(x)
++
||
++
++
f=open("yo.txt","wt")
f.write(x)
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "", line 1, in
TypeError: write() argument must be str, not PrettyTable
f.write(x.get_string())
11

[JelleZijlstra]

This is documented behavior: https://docs.python.org/3.11/library/io.html#io.TextIOBase.write. If you want to change this behavior, I'd recommend opening a discussion on discuss.python.org or the python-ideas mailing list first.

For what it's worth I'd oppose this change. Requiring that the argument is already a string helps avoid accidental bugs like writing the str() of a function object.

If print does it, why not write? I guess consistent behavior of pyhton APIs does not mean much.

[JelleZijlstra]

print() is usually meant for interactive or debugging use, where it's convenient to get automatic conversion. .write() is a lower-level API that has stricter type checks.

print() and write() are both quite often used basic functions in python I use. I wonder if other people use only one of them dominantly.