I'm trying to open a tmpfile in the system $EDITOR, write to it, and then read in the output. I can get it to work, but I am wondering why calling file.read returns an empty string (when the file does have content)
Basically I'd like to know the correct way of reading the file once it has been written to.
require 'tempfile'
file = Tempfile.new("note")
system("$EDITOR #{file.path}")
file.rewind
puts file.read # this puts out an empty string "" .. why?
puts IO.read(file.path) # this puts out the contents of the file
Yes, I will be running this in an ensure block to nuke the file once used ;)
I was running this on ruby 2.2.2 and using vim.
Make sure you are calling open on the file object before attempting to read it in:
require 'tempfile'
file = Tempfile.new("note")
system("$EDITOR #{file.path}")
file.open
puts file.read
file.close
file.unlink
This will also let you avoid calling rewind on the file, since your process hasn't written any bytes to it at the time you open it.
I believe IO.read will always open the file for you, which is why it worked in that case. Whereas calling .read on an IO-like object does not always open the file for you.
Related
I'm trying to adapt some existing code to also handle gems. This existing code needs the version number of the thing in question (here: the gem) and does some git stuff to get the relevant file (here I take the gemspec) in the right version, and then passes it on stdin to another script that extract the version number (and other stuff).
To avoid having to write code to parse a gemspec, I was trying to do:
spec = Gem::Specification::load('-')
puts spec.name
puts spec.version
But I can't make it read from stdin (it works fine if I hardcode a file name, but that won't work in my usecase). Can I do that, or is there another (easy) way to do it?
Gem::Specification.load expects either a File instance or a path to a file as the first argument so the easiest way to solve this would be to simply create a Tempfile instance and write the data from stdin to it.
file = Tempfile.new
begin
file.write(data_from_stdin)
file.rewind
spec = Gem::Specification.load(file)
puts spec.name
puts spec.version
ensure
file.close
file.unlink
end
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.
I'm trying to create a new file and things don't seem to be working as I expect them too. Here's what I've tried:
File.new "out.txt"
File.open "out.txt"
File.new "out.txt","w"
File.open "out.txt","w"
According to everything I've read online all of those should work but every single one of them gives me this:
ERRNO::ENOENT: No such file or directory - out.txt
This happens from IRB as well as a Ruby script. What am I missing?
Use:
File.open("out.txt", [your-option-string]) {|f| f.write("write your stuff here") }
where your options are:
r - Read only. The file must exist.
w - Create an empty file for writing.
a - Append to a file.The file is created if it does not exist.
r+ - Open a file for update both reading and writing. The file must exist.
w+ - Create an empty file for both reading and writing.
a+ - Open a file for reading and appending. The file is created if it does not exist.
In your case, 'w' is preferable.
OR you could have:
out_file = File.new("out.txt", "w")
#...
out_file.puts("write your stuff here")
#...
out_file.close
Try
File.open("out.txt", "w") do |f|
f.write(data_you_want_to_write)
end
without using the
File.new "out.txt"
Try using "w+" as the write mode instead of just "w":
File.open("out.txt", "w+") { |file| file.write("boo!") }
OK, now I feel stupid. The first two definitely do not work but the second two do. Not sure how I convinced my self that I had tried them. Sorry for wasting everyone's time.
In case this helps anyone else, this can occur when you are trying to make a new file in a directory that does not exist.
If the objective is just to create a file, the most direct way I see is:
FileUtils.touch "foobar.txt"
The directory doesn't exist. Make sure it exists as open won't create those dirs for you.
I ran into this myself a while back.
File.new and File.open default to read mode ('r') as a safety mechanism, to avoid possibly overwriting a file. We have to explicitly tell Ruby to use write mode ('w' is the most common way) if we're going to output to the file.
If the text to be output is a string, rather than write:
File.open('foo.txt', 'w') { |fo| fo.puts "bar" }
or worse:
fo = File.open('foo.txt', 'w')
fo.puts "bar"
fo.close
Use the more succinct write:
File.write('foo.txt', 'bar')
write has modes allowed so we can use 'w', 'a', 'r+' if necessary.
open with a block is useful if you have to compute the output in an iterative loop and want to leave the file open as you do so. write is useful if you are going to output the content in one blast then close the file.
See the documentation for more information.
data = 'data you want inside the file'.
You can use File.write('name of file here', data)
You can also use constants instead of strings to specify the mode you want. The benefit is if you make a typo in a constant name, your program will raise an runtime exception.
The constants are File::RDONLY or File::WRONLY or File::CREAT. You can also combine them if you like.
Full description of file open modes on ruby-doc.org
I have a Ruby script that produces a Latex document using an erb template. After the .tex file has been generated, I'd like to make a system call to compile the document with pdflatex. Here are the bones of the script:
class Book
# initialize the class, query a database to get attributes, create the book, etc.
end
my_book = Book.new
tex_file = File.open("/path/to/raw/tex/template")
template = ERB.new(tex_file.read)
f = File.new("/path/to/tex/output.tex")
f.puts template.result
system "pdflatex /path/to/tex/output.tex"
The system line puts me in interactive tex input mode, as if the document were empty. If I remove the call, the document is generated as normal. How can I ensure that the system call isn't made until after the document is generated? In the meantime I'm just using a bash script that calls the ruby script and then pdflatex to get around the issue.
The File.new will open a new stream that won't be closed (saved to disk) until the script ends of until you manually close it.
This should work:
...
f = File.new("/path/to/tex/output.tex")
f.puts template.result
f.close
system "pdflatex /path/to/tex/output.tex"
Or a more friendly way:
...
File.open("/path/to/tex/output.tex", 'w') do |f|
f.puts template.result
end
system "pdflatex /path/to/tex/output.tex"
The File.open with a block will open the stream, make the stream accessible via the block variable (f in this example) and auto-close the stream after the block execution. The 'w' will open or create the file (if the file already exists the content will be erased => The file will be truncated)
I want to be able to read a currently open file. The test.rb is sending its output to test.log which I want to be able to read and ultimately send via email.
I am running this using cron:
*/5 * * * /tmp/test.rb > /tmp/log/test.log 2>&1
I have something like this in test.rb:
#!/usr/bin/ruby
def read_file(file_name)
file = File.open(file_name, "r")
data = file.read
file.close
return data
end
puts "Start"
puts read_file("/tmp/log/test.log")
puts "End"
When I run this code, it only gives me this output:
Start
End
I would expect the output to be something like this:
Start
Start (from the reading of the test.log since it should have the word start already)
End
Ok, you're trying to do several things at once, and I suspect you didn't systematically test before moving from one step to the next.
First we're going to clean up your code:
def read_file(file_name)
file = File.open(file_name, "r")
data = file.read
file.close
return data
end
puts "Start"
puts read_file("/tmp/log/test.log")
puts "End"
can be replaced with:
puts "Start"
puts File.read("./test.log")
puts "End"
It's plain and simple; There's no need for a method or anything complicated... yet.
Note that for ease of testing I'm working with a file in the current directory. To put some content in it I'll simply do:
echo "foo" > ./test.log
Running the test code gives me...
Greg:Desktop greg$ ruby test.rb
Start
foo
End
so I know the code is reading and printing correctly.
Now we can test what would go into the crontab, before we deal with its madness:
Greg:Desktop greg$ ruby test.rb > ./test.log
Greg:Desktop greg$
Hmm. No output. Something is broken with that. We knew there was content in the file previously, so what happened?
Greg:Desktop greg$ cat ./test.log
Start
End
Cat'ing the file shows it has the "Start" and "End" output of the code, but the part that should have been read and output is now missing.
What happening is that the shell truncated "test.log" just before it passed control to Ruby, which then opened and executed the code, which opened the now empty file to print it. In other words, you're asking the shell to truncate (empty) it just before you read it.
The fix is to read from a different file than you're going to write to, if you're trying to do something with the contents of it. If you're not trying to do something with its contents then there's no point in reading it with Ruby just to write it to a different file: We have cp and/or mv to do those things for us witout Ruby being involved. So, this makes more sense if we're going to do something with the contents:
ruby test.rb > ./test.log.out
I'll reset the file contents using echo "foo" > ./test.log, and cat'ing it showed 'foo', so I'm ready to try the redirection test again:
Greg:Desktop greg$ ruby test.rb > ./test.log.out
Greg:Desktop greg$ cat test.log.out
Start
foo
End
That time it worked. Trying it again has the same result, so I won't show the results here.
If you're going to email the file you could add that code at this point. Replacing the puts in the puts File.read('./test.log') line with an assignment to a variable will store the file's content:
contents = File.read('./test.log')
Then you can use contents as the body of a email. (And, rather than use Ruby for all of this I'd probably do it using mail or mailx or pipe it directly to sendmail, using the command-line and shell, but that's your call.)
At this point things are in a good position to add the command to crontab, using the same command as used on the command-line. Because it's running in cron, and errors can happen that we'd want to know about, we'd add the 2>&1 redirect to capture STDERR also, just as you did before. Just remember that you can NOT write to the same file you're going to read from or you'll have an empty file to read.
That's enough to get your app working.
class FileLineRead
File.open("file_line_read.txt") do |file|
file.each do |line|
phone_number = line.gsub(/\n/,'')
user = User.find_by_phone_number(line)
user.destroy unless user.nil?
end
end
end
open file
read line
DB Select
DB Update
In the cron job you have already opened and cleared test.log (via redirection) before you have read it in the Ruby script.
Why not do both the read and write in Ruby?
It may be a permissions issue or the file may not exist.
f = File.open("test","r")
puts f.read()
f.close()
The above will read the file test. If the file exists in the current directory
The problem is, as I can see, already solved by Slomojo. I'll only add:
to read and print a text file in Ruby, just:
puts File.read("/tmp/log/test.log")