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Solve the following problem using Python, implementing the functions described below, one line at a time
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Description:
 def _safe_read(path, length):
 """Read file contents."""

    if not os.path.exists(os.path.join(HERE, path)):
        return ''
    file_handle = codecs.open(os.path.join(HERE, path), encoding='utf-8')
    contents = file_handle.read(length)
    file_handle.close()
    return contents