From b71304c03bdecc5304cdbdd06beee5642e2dfded Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Antony Lee <anntzer.lee@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 25 May 2018 02:21:22 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] Don't recurse in to_filehandle for PathLikes.

---
 lib/matplotlib/cbook/__init__.py | 4 +---
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/lib/matplotlib/cbook/__init__.py b/lib/matplotlib/cbook/__init__.py
index cd2177e75f6b..c722819765c5 100644
--- a/lib/matplotlib/cbook/__init__.py
+++ b/lib/matplotlib/cbook/__init__.py
@@ -452,9 +452,7 @@ def to_filehandle(fname, flag='rU', return_opened=False, encoding=None):
     read/write flag for :func:`file`
     """
     if isinstance(fname, getattr(os, "PathLike", ())):
-        return to_filehandle(
-            os.fspath(fname),
-            flag=flag, return_opened=return_opened, encoding=encoding)
+        fname = os.fspath(fname)
     if isinstance(fname, str):
         if fname.endswith('.gz'):
             # get rid of 'U' in flag for gzipped files.