from typing import List


def _open_smiles_file(smiles_fn: str) -> List[str]:
    """
    Args:
        smiles_fn (str): filename/path for SMILES file

    Returns:
        list[str]: [smiles_0, ..., smiles_N]
    """

    with open(smiles_fn, 'r') as smi_file:
        smiles = smi_file.readlines()
    smi_file.close()
    smiles = [s.replace('\n', '') for s in smiles]
    return smiles