title: What is exactly a file-like object in Python?
body: <p>In <a href="http://docs.python.org/library/json.html" rel="noreferrer">http://docs.python.org/library/json.html</a>:</p>
  <blockquote>
  <p><code>simplejson.load(fp[, encoding[, cls[, object_hook[, parse_float[, parse_int[, parse_constant[, object_pairs_hook[, use_decimal[, **kw]]]]]]]]])</code></p>
  <p>Deserialize fp (a .read()-supporting file-like object containing a JSON document) to a Python object.</p>
  </blockquote>
  <p>I do know what <code>read()</code> and <code>write()</code> do.</p>
  <p>But after reading this description &quot;read()-supporting file-like object&quot;, I find I don't know what object type supports the <code>read()</code> and <code>write()</code>.</p>
  <p>And I can't find that in the rest of documentation.
  Anyone could elaborate more on the statement?</p>
  <p>Why I ask this question is for getting &quot;simplejson.load(urllib.open(...))&quot; done.<br />
  The return value of &quot;urllib.open(...)&quot; is not a valid object, so I have to tailor it for simplejson. However, it seems like that string is not read()-supporting.</p>