Open failure, cryptic debugger output

Users
#1

I’m having trouble with the following simple open statement. The code dies on that
line and the diagnostics are of no help.` This is Python 3.9 PyCharm

`py3
import pdb
pdb.set_trace()
OBPRINT = open(“c:\users\asha\ilsmom3a\regobl.formatted.sysprint.new”, “w”)

The code dies on the OBPRINT line. Here’s the output in the debugger window

C:\Users\asha\PycharmProjects\pythonProject1\venv\Scripts\python.exe -m pdb “C:\Users\asha\AppData\Local\JetBrains\PyCharm Community Edition 2020.3.5\plugins\python-ce\helpers\pydev\pydevd.py” --multiproc --qt-support=auto --client 127.0.0.1 --port 60349 --file c:/users/asha/ilsmom3aa.py

c:\users\asha\appdata\local\jetbrains\pycharm community edition 2020.3.5\plugins\python-ce\helpers\pydev\pydevd.py(1)()
→ ‘’’
(Pdb)
Process finished with exit code -1

What’s going on?

Thank-you!

#2

It might be the case that you have copied the code from somewhere, and the double inverted commas are not compatible. So, there are two potential fixes:

First, always use a raw string for addresses. So just put a r before the address string in open statement.

Second, retype the double inverted commas.

#3

What exception do you get if you take the debugger out of the equation
and just run the open function?

#4

Hi Sanket,

If the quotes were Unicode “smart quotes” or “double inverted commas”,
the code wouldn’t even get to the debugger because it would be an
immediate syntax error:

>>> open(“filename”)
  File "<stdin>", line 1
    open(“filename”)
         ^
SyntaxError: invalid character '“' (U+201C)

Also, it is not good advice to use raw strings for file names. I know
lots of people do it on Windows, but it is still not the best advice.
The problem is that raw strings cannot end with a backslash, so you
cannot write a path like this:

path = r'path\to\directory\'

The generally preferred way to write pathnames on Windows is to use
forward slashes:

path = 'path/to/directory/'

The Windows OS will accept forward slashes instead of backslashes for
paths under most circumstances. In the context of using Python’s open()
function, it will always work.

1 Like
#5

@steven.daprano thanks for the advice. I didn’t yet knew raw strings are not 100% raw, lol!

#6

Thanks for the replies. I don’t know what went wrong. All I did was delete the offending statement and retype it from scratch and then it worked fine.

Avi