Occasionally I Feel Stupid

Why? Well, other than the johnisms that my friends know me for, I just discovered File.read tonight. Check out this dandy I wrote in the past:

begin
  file = File.open('file.txt', 'r')
  data = file.read
ensure
  file.close
end

Now that I am taking the time to read through the Standard Library, I’m having all kinds of “Oh, duh” moments. The easy way to do the above maneuver is:

data = File.read('file.txt')

So what is the lesson of the day? Get to know the Standard Library. Take some time to read through the various classes and get an overview of what they do. You don’t have to know all the details but knowing that they exist is sure to save you time (and beauty) in the future.

4 Comments

Yan
Apr 26, 2007

Also, File like many other resources in ruby, can take a block that ensures cleanup:

File.open(“file”) do |f|
#do anything you want here
end

the file will automatically be closed for you
Chris
Apr 26, 2007

Also also, open('file.txt').read
Chas
Apr 28, 2007

Ha… remember when you suggested that I learn Ruby before starting in on Rails?

That’s why this is the first place I look – and the only documentation I have linked from my bookmarks toolbar: Builtins
raul parolari
Jul 18, 2007

It is perhaps worth to add that these one-liners are great for a quick job; however, as they do not catch exceptions, the best (for deployment) is in a way similar to the first version that you wrote:

begin
data = File.read(‘hope_is_there.txt’)
rescue Exception => e
puts “your file is not there: #{e}”
end