Reading stdin as binary file in windows python3

Question

I have a code to read stdin as binary file in linux:

#! /usr/bin/python3
stdin_file = '/dev/stdin'
def read_input():
    with open(stdin_file, mode='rb') as f:
        while True:
            inp = f.read(4)
            if not inp: break
            print('got :' , inp)

read_input()

what could be its alternative for windows OS? I dont want to use sys.stdin.buffer.read() Consider it as it is compulsary for me to use it like open(file_name)

Answer 1

sys.stdin, sys.stdout, and sys.stderr each have a fileno() method which returns their file descriptor number. (0, 1, or 2).

In python you can use the buffer's fileno as the path destination for open.

Also, as @Eryk Sun mentioned in a comment, you probably want to pass closefd=False when calling open so the underlying file descriptor for sys.stdin isn't closed when exiting the with block.

For example:

import sys

fileno = sys.stdin.fileno()
print(fileno)
# prints 0

# Open stdin's file descriptor number as a file.
with open(fileno, "rb", closefd=False) as f:
    while True:
        inp = f.read(4)
        if not inp:
            break
        print("Got:", inp)

Answer 2

Even though you said in your question "I dont want to use sys.stdin.buffer.read()", this might be useful for other users coming to this answer..

A good option is to use the .buffer member of the stream to get access to a binary version:

stdin_buffer = sys.stdin.buffer
def read_input():
    while True:
        inp = stdin_buffer.read(4)
        if not inp: break
        print('got :' , inp)