filehandle index and len

On a filehandle (returned by the open function) we cannot call the len function, nor can we access arbitrary element (row) using index in a square bracket []. We can only use it as an iterator.

len

import sys
file = sys.argv[0]

with open(file) as fh:
    print(len(fh))

Error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File ".../fh_len.py", line 5, in <module>
    print(len(fh))
          ~~~^^^^
TypeError: object of type '_io.TextIOWrapper' has no len()

index

import sys
file = sys.argv[0]

with open(file) as fh:
    print(fh[2])

Error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File ".../fh_index.py", line 5, in <module>
    print(fh[2])
          ~~^^^
TypeError: '_io.TextIOWrapper' object is not subscriptable