Python 3 actually works approximately the way you’re describing: https://docs.python.org/3/library/io.html#io.TextIOWrapper https://docs.python.org/3/library/i

Python 3 actually works approximately the way you’re describing: https://docs.python.org/3/library/io.html#io.TextIOWrapper https://docs.python.org/3/library/io.html#io.TextIOWrapper open is just a factory function, conceptually inherited (I think) from C.