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Hello, and thanks for the follow-up! A "file-like object" refers to anything in Python that you can interact with that "looks like" a file. For example my actual file on disk, or my in-memory thing that looks like a file, or my object visible remotely on some server somewhere; I can interact with these using methods like `.read()` and `.write()`. In this case, that does *not* include strings/Paths (though many packages out there do take strings, paths, or file-like objects for a variety of functions.) So in this case, if your colortable follows the format Ryan specified before, you could read it in as follows: with open('mycolortable.tbl') as fobj: ctable = metpy.plots.read_colortable(fobj) where you create a file-like object by `open()`ing our text file. I hope this helps! Don't hesitate to follow-up if you have any other questions. All the best, Drew > So what exactly is a 'file-like object'? Is it a string with a path to a > filename, like './mycolortable.tbl' ? > Let's say I've got a color table saved in a text file called > 'mycolortable.tbl'. What would the syntax look like to read this color > table? > Ticket Details =================== Ticket ID: HSE-220221 Department: Support Python Priority: Low Status: Closed =================== NOTE: All email exchanges with Unidata User Support are recorded in the Unidata inquiry tracking system and then made publicly available through the web. If you do not want to have your interactions made available in this way, you must let us know in each email you send to us.