Map object has no len() in Python 3

Question

I have this Python tool written by someone else to flash a certain microcontroller, but he has written this tool for Python 2.6 and I am using Python 3.3. So, most of it I got ported, but this line is making problems: ``` data = map(lambda c: ord(c), file(args[0], 'rb').read()) ``` The `file` function does not exist in Python 3 and has to be replaced with `open`. But then, a function which gets `data` as an argument causes an exception: ``` TypeError: object of type 'map' has no len() ``` But what I see so far in the documentation is, that `map` has to join iterable types to one big iterable, am I missing something? What do I have to do to port this to Python 3?

Accepted Answer

In Python 3, `map` returns an iterator. If your function expects a list, the iterator has to be explicitly converted, like this:

```
data = list(map(...))
```

And we can do it simply, like this

```
with open(args[0], "rb") as input_file:
    data = list(input_file.read())
```

`rb` refers to read in binary mode. So, it actually returns the bytes. So, we just have to convert them to a list.

Quoting from the `open`'s docs,

Python distinguishes between binary and text I/O. Files opened in binary mode (including 'b' in the mode argument) return contents as bytes objects without any decoding.

Map object has no len() in Python 3

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