It's an ArgumentTypeError because that's what you're supposed to raise inside type functions:

http://docs.python.org/dev/library/argparse.html#type

(Note that argparse.FileType.__call__ is what will be called when we pass type=argparse.FileType(...) to add_argument.)

The current docstring for ArgumentTypeError is correct - it says it's "An error from trying to convert a command line string to a type" and we're converting a file path (string) into a file object.  But I certainly wouldn't complain if someone wanted to make the wording there clearer. Basically the rule is:

* Use ArgumentTypeError when you're defining a type= function
* Use ArgumentError otherwise