def read(*parts):
    """
    Build an absolute path from *parts* and and return the contents of the
    resulting file.  Assume UTF-8 encoding.
    """
    with codecs.open(os.path.join(HERE, *parts), "rb", "utf-8") as f:
        return f.read()
def get_date(self, p_tag):
        """ Given a date tag, return a date object. """
        string = self.tag_value(p_tag)
        result = None

        try:
            result = date_string_to_date(string) if string else None
        except ValueError:
            pass

        return result