':return: the given file(s) as a single string.
:rtype: str'

def raw(self, fileids=None):

    result = []
    for (fileid, encoding) in self.abspaths(fileids, include_encoding=True):
        if isinstance(fileid, PathPointer):
            result.append(fileid.open(encoding=encoding).read())
        else:
            with codecs.open(fileid, 'r', encoding) as fp:
                result.append(fp.read())
    return concat(result)
