Python 3.5+pathlibfunction

.read_bytes()

reading/writing

Read the whole file into a bytes object — the binary counterpart of `.read_text()`, with no decoding and no encoding parameter.

Syntax

p.read_bytes()

The entire file lands in memory at once, so switch to open(..., 'rb') with chunked reads when the file is large. Unlike .read_text(), nothing is decoded and newlines are left untouched — CRLF stays CRLF — which is exactly why checksums and binary formats go through read_bytes.

Examples

from pathlib import Path
p = Path('test_pathlib.bin')
p.write_bytes(b'\x00\x01')
p.read_bytes() # → b'\x00\x01'

See also

Common errors

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