How to replace the first few bytes of a file in Ruby without opening the whole file? - ruby

I have a 30MB XML file that contains some gibberish in the beginning, and so typically I have to remove that in order for Nokogiri to be able to parse the XML document properly.
Here's what I currently have:
contents = File.open(file_path).read
if contents[0..123].include? 'authenticate_response'
fixed_contents = File.open(file_path).read[123..-1]
File.open(file_path, 'w') { |f| f.write(fixed_contents) }
end
However, this actually causes the ruby script to open up the large XML file twice. Once to read the first 123 characters, and another time to read everything but the first 123 characters.
To solve the first issue, I was able to accomplish this:
contents = File.open(file_path).read(123)
However, now I need to remove these characters from the file without reading the entire file. How can I "trim" the beginning of this file without having to open the entire thing in memory?

You can open the file once, then read and check the "garbage" and finally pass the opened file directly to nokogiri for parsing. That way, you only need read the file once and don't need to write it at all.
File.open(file_path) do |xml_file|
if xml_file.read(123).include? 'authenticate_response'
# header found, nothing to do
else
# no header found. We rewind and let nokogiri parse the whole file
xml_file.rewind
end
xml = Nokogiri::XML.parse(xml_file)
# Now to whatever you want with the parsed XML document
end
Please refer to the documentation of IO#read, IO#rewind and Nokigiri::XML::Document.parse for details about those methods.

Related

Changing information in a CSV file

I'm trying to write a ruby script that will read through a CSV file and prepend information to certain cells (for instance adding a path to a file). I am able to open and mutate the text just fine, but am having issues writing back to the CSV without overriding everything. This is a sample of what I have so far:
CSV.foreach(path) { |row|
text = row[0].to_s
new_text = "test:#{text}"
}
I would like to add something within that block that would then write new_textback to the same reference cell(row) in the file. The only way I have to found to write to a file is
CSV.open(path, "wb") { |row|
row << new_text
}
But I think that is bad practice since you are reopening the file within the file block already. Is there a better way I could do this?
EX: I have a CSV file that looks something like:
file,destination
test.txt,A101
and need it to be:
file,destination
path/test.txt,id:A101
Hope that makes sense. Thanks in advance!
Depending on the size if the file, you might consider loading the contents of the file into a local variable and then manipulating that, overwriting the original file.
lines = CSV.read(path)
File.open(path, "wb") do |file|
lines.each do |line|
text = line[0].to_s
line[0] = "test:#{text}" # Replace this with your editing logic
file.write CSV.generate_line(line)
end
end
Alternately, if the file is big, you could write each modified line to a new file along the way and then replace the old file with the new one at the end.
Given that you don't appear to be doing anything that draws on CSV capabilities, I'd recommend using Ruby's "in-place" option variable $-i.
Some of the stats software I use wants just the data, and can't deal with a header line. Here's a script I wrote a while back to (appear to) strip the first line out of one or more data files specified on the command-line.
#! /usr/bin/env ruby -w
#
# User supplies the name of one or more files to be "stripped"
# on the command-line.
#
# This script ignores the first line of each file.
# Subsequent lines of the file are copied to the new version.
#
# The operation saves each original input file with a suffix of
# ".orig" and then operates in-place on the specified files.
$-i = ".orig" # specify backup suffix
oldfilename = ""
ARGF.each do |line|
if ARGF.filename == oldfilename # If it's an old file
puts line # copy lines through.
else # If it's a new file remember it
oldfilename = ARGF.filename # but don't copy the first line.
end
end
Obviously you'd want to change the puts line pass-through to whatever edit operations you want to perform.
I like this solution because even if you screw it up, you've preserved your original file as its original name with .orig (or whatever suffix you choose) appended.

Append new lines to a csv from json.parse

more sysadmin (chef) than ruby guy, so this may be a five minute fix.
I am working on a task where i write a ruby script that pulls json data from multiple files, parses it, and writes the desired fields to a single .csv file. Basically pulling metadata about aws accounts and putting it in an accountant friendly format.
Got a lot of help from another stackoverflow on how to solve the problem for a single file, json.parse help.
My issue is that I am trying to pull the same data from multiple JSON files in an array. I can get it to loop through each file with the code below.
require 'csv'
require "json"
delim_file = CSV.open("delimited_test.csv", "w")
aws_account_list = %w(example example2)
aws_account_list.each do |account|
json_file = File.read(account.to_s + "_aws.json")
parsed_json = JSON.parse(json_file)
delim_file = CSV.open("delimited_test.csv", "w")
# This next line could be a problem if you ran this code multiple times
delim_file << ["EbsOptimized", "PrivateDnsName", "KeyName", "AvailabilityZone", "OwnerId"]
parsed_json['Reservations'].each do |inner_json|
inner_json['Instances'].each do |instance_json|
delim_file << [[instance_json['EbsOptimized'].to_s, instance_json['PrivateDnsName'], instance_json['KeyName'], instance_json['Placement']['AvailabilityZone'], inner_json['OwnerId']],[]]
end
delim_file.close
end
end
However, whenever I do it, it overwrites every time to the same single row in the .csv file. I have tried adding a \n string to the end of the array, converting the array to a string with hashes and doing a \n, but all that does is add a line to the same row that it overwrites.
How would I go about writing that it reads each json file, then appending each files metadata to a new row? This looks like a simple case of writing the right loop, but I can't figure it out.
You declared your file like this:
delim_file = CSV.open("delimited_test.csv", "w")
To fix your issue, all you have to do is change "w" to "a":
delim_file = CSV.open("delimited_test.csv", "a")
See the docs for IO#new for a description of the available file modes. In short, w creates an empty file at the filename, overwriting anyothers, and writes to that. a only creates the file if it doesn't exist, and appends otherwise. Because you have it currently at w, it'll overwrite it each time you run the script. With a, it'll append to what's already there.
You need to open file in append mode, use
delim_file = CSV.open("delimited_test.csv", "a")
'a' Write-only, starts at end of file if file exists, otherwise creates a new file for writing.
'a+' Read-write, starts at end of file if file exists, otherwise creates a new file for reading and writing'

After reading a file ruby leaves it open/locked on Windows XP

I read a text file to get some info from it and later on I need to rename the directory that the file sits in. I am not able do to that because the file is locked. If I comment out the function that reads from the file or if I manually unlock the file (unlocker utility) everything goes fine.
I am on ruby 1.8.7 (2010-08-16 patchlevel 302) [i386-mingw32]
This line leaves the file open File.open(file).readlines.each{|line|
These two lines leave the file open
my_file=File.open(file,"r")
my_file.collect {|line|
unless I close the file at the end using my_file.close
The man for core 1.8.7 of IO.html#method-c-open states
If the optional code block is given, it will be passed io as an argument, and the IO object will automatically be closed when the block terminates.
So I don't understand why the file is still open.
What would be the one line code in 1.8.7 to read a text file and close it automatically?
The documentation is clear. However, you're passing the block to collect. And since you're not passing it to open, you are responsible for closing the file.
To have file auto-closed, try this:
File.open(file,"r") do |f|
f.collect # or whatever
end
Try passing the block directly to the "open" call:
File.open(file, 'r') do |f|
f.each_line do |line|
# Process each line
end
end
Or if you just want the file contents in a single shot then try this:
lines = File.read(file).split(/\r?\n/)
If you want the block to close the file automagically without passing the file handle to a block, you can use the IO#readlines method of your File object.
array_of_lines = File.readlines('/tmp/foo')
This will read the entire contents of the file, then close the file handle. It's a good option whenever a file is small enough to fit easily into memory.

Why won't gsub! change my files?

I am trying to do a simple find/replace on all text files in a directory, modifying any instance of [RAVEN_START: by inserting a string (in this case 'raven was here') before the line.
Here is the entire ruby program:
#!/usr/bin/env ruby
require 'rubygems'
require 'fileutils' #for FileUtils.mv('your file', 'new location')
class RavenParser
rawDir = Dir.glob("*.txt")
count = 0
rawDir.each do |ravFile|
#we have selected every text file, so now we have to search through the file
#and make the needed changes.
rav = File.open(ravFile, "r+") do |modRav|
#Now we've opened the file, and we need to do the operations.
if modRav
lines = File.open(modRav).readlines
lines.each { |line|
if line.match /\[RAVEN_START:.*\]/
line.gsub!(/\[RAVEN_START:/, 'raven was here '+line)
count = count + 1
end
}
printf("Total Changed: %d\n",count)
else
printf("No txt files found. \n")
end
end
#end of file replacing instructions.
end
# S
end
The program runs and compiles fine, but when I open up the text file, there has been no change to any of the text within the file. count increments properly (that is, it is equal to the number of instances of [RAVEN_START: across all the files), but the actual substitution is failing to take place (or at least not saving the changes).
Is my syntax on the gsub! incorrect? Am I doing something else wrong?
You're reading the data, updating it, and then neglecting to write it back to the file. You need something like:
# And save the modified lines.
File.open(modRav, 'w') { |f| f.puts lines.join("\n") }
immediately before or after this:
printf("Total Changed: %d\n",count)
As DMG notes below, just overwriting the file isn't properly paranoid as you could be interrupted in the middle of the write and lose data. If you want to be paranoid (which all of us should be because they really are out to get us), then you want to write to a temporary file and then do an atomic rename to replace the original file the new one. A rename generally only works when you stay within a single file system as there is no guarantee that the OS's temp directory (which Tempfile uses by default) will be on the same file system as modRav so File.rename might not even be an option with a Tempfile unless precautions are taken. But the Tempfile constructor takes a tmpdir parameter so we're saved:
modRavDir = File.dirname(File.realpath(modRav))
tmp = Tempfile.new(modRav, modRavDir)
tmp.write(lines.join("\n"))
tmp.close
File.rename(tmp.path, modRav)
You might want to stick that in a separate method (safe_save(modRav, lines) perhaps) to avoid further cluttering your block.
There is no gsub! in the post (except the title and question). I would actually recommend not using gsub!, but rather use the result of gsub -- avoiding mutability can help reduce a number of subtle bugs.
The line read from the file stream into a String is a copy and modifying it will not affect the contents of the file. (The general approach is to read a line, process the line, and write the line. Or do it all at once: read all lines, process all lines, write all processed lines. In either case, nothing is being written back to the file in the code in the post ;-)
Happy coding.
You're not using gsub!, you're using gsub. gsub! and gsub different methods, one does replacement on the object itself and the other does replacement then returns the result, respectively.
Change this
line.gsub(/\[RAVEN_START:/, 'raven was here '+line)
to this :
line.gsub!(/\[RAVEN_START:/, 'raven was here '+line)
or this:
line = line.gsub(/\[RAVEN_START:/, 'raven was here '+line)
See String#gsub for more info

Ruby Premature EOF?

I'm trying to write one file into another one in Ruby, but the output seems to stop prematurely.
Input file - large CSS file with base64 embedded fonts
Output file - basic html file.
#write some HTML before the CSS (works)
...
#write the external CSS (doesn't work, output finished prematurely)
while !ext_css_file.eof()
out_file.puts(ext_css_file.read())
end
...
#write some HTML after the CSS (works)
The resulting file is basically a valid HTML file, with a truncated CSS (in the middle of an embedded font)
When doing a puts on the result of read(), I get the same result: The CSS file is read only up to this last string: "RMSHhoPCAGt/mELDBESFBQSggGfAgESKCUAAAAAAAwAlgABAAAAAAABAAUADAABAAAAAAAC"
It is difficult to provide a detailed solution without more insight into what the CSS file actually contains. Based on your code above, I would try something like this instead:
#write some HTML before the CSS (works)
...
#write the external CSS (doesn't work, output finished prematurely)
out_file.puts(ext_css_file.read())
...
#write some HTML after the CSS (works)
I don't think you need the .eof check because the read method reads and returns the entire file contents, or an empty string or nil if at the end of file. See here: http://apidock.com/ruby/IO/read
I would tend to read and write the same type of data. For instance if I were writing data into the new file using puts, I would read data using readlines. If I were writing binary data using write, I would read the data using read. I would be consistent with either strings or bytes and not mix the two.
Try something like this...
File.open('writable_file_path', 'w') do |f|
# f.puts "some html"
f.puts IO.readlines('css_file_path')
# f.puts "some more html"
end

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