[sf-perl] Bad file number

Joe Brenner doom at kzsu.stanford.edu
Fri Jun 22 11:36:37 PDT 2007


Joe Brenner <doom at kzsu.stanford.edu> wrote:

> But as for the question "How many ways can close() fail"?  
> That beats me, I've never looked into it.  What happens if you close 
> a file that's been deleted by another process?  Or if it was a symlink
> that's been redefined in the meantime?  Or if it's on a partition that 
> got filled up since it was opened?  Of if it's been flocked?
> Or if it's ownership/permissions has changed? 
> 
> Conway, in his "Perl Best Practices" says: 
> 
>   "Never open, close, or print to a file without checking the outcome."
> 
> And I presume he's included "close" in the list for a reason. 
> 
> He also (later, in "Builtin Failures", ch 13) recommends the trick:
> 
>   use Fatal qw( open close ); 
> 
> So that you don't have to remember to "or croak" all over the place.

Oh, and just to save Randal some trouble:

  http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/PerlJournal/col12.html



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