# File Handling in Pillow

When opening a file as an image, Pillow requires a filename, `pathlib.Path` object, or a file-like object. Pillow uses the filename or `Path` to open a file, so for the rest of this article, they will all be treated as a file-like object.

The following are all equivalent:

    from PIL import Image
    import io
    import pathlib

    with Image.open("test.jpg") as im:
        ...

    with Image.open(pathlib.Path("test.jpg")) as im2:
        ...

    with open("test.jpg", "rb") as f:
        im3 = Image.open(f)
        ...

    with open("test.jpg", "rb") as f:
        im4 = Image.open(io.BytesIO(f.read()))
        ...

If a filename or a path-like object is passed to Pillow, then the resulting file object opened by Pillow may also be closed by Pillow after the `Image.Image.load()` method is called, provided the associated image does not have multiple frames.

Pillow cannot in general close and reopen a file, so any access to that file needs to be prior to the close.

## Image Lifecycle

- `Image.open()` Filenames and `Path` objects are opened as a file. Metadata is read from the open file. The file is left open for further usage.

- `Image.Image.load()` When the pixel data from the image is required, `load()` is called. The current frame is read into memory. The image can now be used independently of the underlying image file.

  Any Pillow method that creates a new image instance based on another will internally call `load()` on the original image and then read the data. The new image instance will not be associated with the original image file.

  If a filename or a `Path` object was passed to `Image.open()`, then the file object was opened by Pillow and is considered to be used exclusively by Pillow. So if the image is a single-frame image, the file will be closed in this method after the frame is read. If the image is a multi-frame image, (e.g. multipage TIFF and animated GIF) the image file is left open so that `Image.Image.seek()` can load the appropriate frame.

- `Image.Image.close()` Closes the file and destroys the core image object.

  The Pillow context manager will also close the file, but will not destroy the core image object. e.g.:

      with Image.open("test.jpg") as img:
          img.load()
      assert img.fp is None
      img.save("test.png")

The lifecycle of a single-frame image is relatively simple. The file must remain open until the `load()` or `close()` function is called or the context manager exits.

Multi-frame images are more complicated. The `load()` method is not a terminal method, so it should not close the underlying file. In general, Pillow does not know if there are going to be any requests for additional data until the caller has explicitly closed the image.

## Complications

- `TiffImagePlugin` has some code to pass the underlying file descriptor into libtiff (if working on an actual file). Since libtiff closes the file descriptor internally, it is duplicated prior to passing it into libtiff.

- After a file has been closed, operations that require file access will fail:

      with open("test.jpg", "rb") as f:
          im5 = Image.open(f)
      im5.load()  # FAILS, closed file

      with Image.open("test.jpg") as im6:
          pass
      im6.load()  # FAILS, closed file

## Proposed File Handling

- `Image.Image.load()` should close the image file, unless there are multiple frames.

- `Image.Image.seek()` should never close the image file.

- Users of the library should use a context manager or call `Image.Image.close()` on any image opened with a filename or `Path` object to ensure that the underlying file is closed.