load file string by string to list (utf-8 compatible)

load_file.py

def load_custom_directories_list_from_file(cdl_filename):
    if os.path.isfile(cdl_filename):
        try:
            with codecs.open(cdl_filename, 'r', 'utf-8') as f:
                cdl_file_content = f.readlines()
                # remove special chars like `\n` at the end of each line
                cdl_file_content = [x.strip() for x in cdl_file_content]

                return cdl_file_content
        except Exception as e:
            logging.error(e)
            raise e
    return []