What is the difference between 'File.read' and 'IO.read'?

I am using Ruby and Ruby on Rails 3 and I would like to know...

... what is the difference between

File.read("filename.txt")

and

IO.read("filename.txt")

?

What does read file mean?

n. A file containing materials ordered by date or other time sequence that is circulated for reading or reference.

What is the difference between reading and writing a file in Python?

File Opening Modes'r' – Read Mode: This is the default mode for open(). The file is opened and a pointer is positioned at the beginning of the file's content. 'w' – Write Mode: Using this mode will overwrite any existing content in a file. If the given file does not exist, a new one will be created.

since File is a subclass of IO and it does not have the read method, when you invoke File.read, you are actually calling IO.read no difference here.