Below snippet works fine on Python2

>>> import json
>>> tc_report_file = False
>>> tc_data = json.load(open(tc_report_file))
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: coercing to Unicode: need string or buffer, bool found
>>>

as we can see it is throwing an exception

same piece of code is stuck at Python3.8.10

vinayakh@ats-engine:~/stf_files$ python3
Python 3.8.10 (default, Jun  2 2021, 10:49:15)
[GCC 9.4.0] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>
>>> import json
>>> tc_report_file = False
>>> tc_data = json.load(open(tc_report_file))

You can demonstrate this without the json module:

# python2
>>> open(False)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: coercing to Unicode: need string or buffer, bool found

# python3
>>> open(False).readlines()

The python3 version doesn't return.

The issue is that False is causing a read from stdin, since False == 0.

>>> open(0).readlines()
test
['test\n']

Here I typed "test", followed by Ctrl-D (end of file). readlines() then completed and printed its result.

I think the basic answer here is "don't do this". It's not a bug, and is documented.

https://docs.python.org/3/library/functions.html#open
says:
file is a path-like object giving the pathname (absolute or relative to the current working directory) of the file to be opened or an integer file descriptor of the file to be wrapped.

So an integer file descriptor False is causing stdin to be wrapped.

>>> False == 0
True
>>> isinstance(False, int)
True

Thanks for the clarification Eric.