From: matz@... (Yukihiro Matsumoto)
Date: 1999-07-01T16:21:27+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:00410] Re: open without variables and implicit closing

Hi,

In message "[ruby-talk:00409] open without variables and implicit closing"
    on 99/07/01, Julian R Fondren <julian@cartotech.com> writes:

|If I use File.open without saving its return to a file, how can I or do I
|even need to close the file? That is: with
|``File.open('file', 'r').each{|l| print l}'' where all I'd otherwise want
|to is close the file, could I just not bother with this at all and know
|that the file had been closed?

The unreferenced file will be closed on next GC.  So, you can forget
about it unless you require immediate close/flush of the file.

If you need immediate close, you can do either:

(a)
        f = File.open('file', 'r')
        begin
          f.each{|l| print l}
        ensure
          f.close
        end

(b)
        File.open('file', 'r') do |f|
          f.each{|l| print l}
        end

(c)
        File.foreach('file', 'r'){|l| print l}

Hope this helps.
                                                matz.