ValueError: embedded null byte when opening a file using bytestring Python

Question

I try to open a file (here bytestring is shortened) but get ValueError: embedded null byte

My code:

file = b'\x03\x04\x14\x00'

with open(file) as f:
    print(f.name)

I get this:

ValueError: embedded null byte

Answer 1

Here's your code; let's go through it. I see three issues.

file = b'\x03\x04\x14\x00'

with open(file) as f:
    print(f.name)

1. The open(file) requires a filename or path, not bytes.

2. Your file is actually the bytes you'd get from running f.read() , after opening the file.

3. Finally, in f.name , the "name" is probably a "property" of a file Path (ie from pathlib import Path ).

Typically, the pattern would look more like this:

from pathlib import Path

file = Path("/home/user/docs/spreadsheet.csv")
print(file.name)

# Open file in "read-binary" mode, and read all the content into the "bytes_" variable
with open(file, 'rb') as f:
    bytes_ = f.read()

print(bytes_)