From: William James <w_a_x_man@...>
Date: 2005-08-17T06:51:14+09:00
Subject: Re: Probably missing something simple here ... help {wimper}


Wilson Bilkovich wrote:
> On 8/16/05, B. Angell <lists@activepipes.com> wrote:
> > Am trying to read from a file and write to a number of files based on
> > the first 4 letters of the data line.  Therefore, I want to be able to
> > write the line:  A0037775830|lkajsdlkfjsaljf;lsakjfdsa;jf to file A003
> > *and* append all of the A003 lines as well.  Here is the hack I have
> > below, however, produces errors and I know I am missing something
> > simple/easy ..... as follows:
> >
> > #!/usr/bin/ruby -w
> > File.open("meshdata.txt") do |file|
> >  while line = file.gets
> >  a = line
> >  b = a[0,4]
> >   File.open(b,"w") do |afile|
> >    puts a.afile
> >
> >   end
> >  end
> > end
>
> I'm at the end of a long day here, and I haven't bothered to try to
> understand your goals/requirements/etc, so forgive me if this is just
> a senseless babble.  However, here's what comes to mind:
>
> #!/usr/bin/ruby -w
> File.open("meshdata.txt").each_line do |line|
>  thingy = line[0,4]
>  File.open(thingy,"a+") do |new_file|
>   new_file.puts line
>  end
> end
>
> If your input file is hooooj, you would probably want to sort it
> first, to minimize the number of times you open and close files.

Doesn't this open and close a file every time a line is
read from meshdata.txt, even if that file is sorted?