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https://github.com/python/cpython
09 December 2020, 11:06:31 UTC
Revision b9f932f9e2a170a8d39b3c17f5fabb0967839d85 authored by Miss Islington (bot) on 14 September 2019, 20:47:39 UTC, committed by GitHub on 14 September 2019, 20:47:39 UTC 
bpo-37635: Update arg name for seek() in IO tutorial (GH-16147)
 

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 ff603f6c3d3dc0e9ea8c1c51ce907c4821f42c54)

Co-authored-by: Kyle Stanley <aeros167@gmail.com>
1 parent 4fac581
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Tip revision: b9f932f9e2a170a8d39b3c17f5fabb0967839d85 authored by Miss Islington (bot) on 14 September 2019, 20:47:39 UTC
bpo-37635: Update arg name for seek() in IO tutorial (GH-16147)
Tip revision: b9f932f
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