Does it make sense to flush and close?

Ruby
1

Hi everyone,

Consider the following code:

Save the file on the file system

File.open(self.temp_path, ‘wb’) do |f|
while buff = myfile_field.read(4096)
f.write(buff)
f.flush
end
end

Is there any benefit in flushing in the code above?
Does this mean 4096 bytes of memory are freed everytime flush is called?

I’m trying to grasp what exactly happens and if there are any benefits
or drawbacks.

Thanks,

Mischa

2

On Feb 15, 2007, at 14:39, Mischa B. wrote:

end

Is there any benefit in flushing in the code above?

Unlikely. It only ensures the data is written to the file.

Does this mean 4096 bytes of memory are freed everytime flush is
called?

No. The GC will clean up memory as necessary.

I’m trying to grasp what exactly happens and if there are any benefits
or drawbacks.

fflush(3) is called more often, that’s all.

3

On 2/15/07, Mischa B. [email protected] wrote:

end
end

Is there any benefit in flushing in the code above?

I’m trying to grasp what exactly happens and if there are any benefits
or drawbacks.

In most situations, the extra calls flush are nothing but a drawback, in
that they are a performance penalty. That’s why the operating system
caches up the writes in the first place – to speed things up.

But in some situations, it might considered a benefit. For instance if
you’re concerned that the destination might run out of disk space, then
it might be to your advantage to immediately find out when that
happens. Without those extra calls to flush, if you do run out of
disk
space, then the code has no way of knowing how much of the data
actually made it to the disk. Consider, for instance, if you were
writing
a huge file to multiple USB-key devices. If code knew exactly when the
first one was full, then it could flip to a new floppy and continue
writing.
(there are other solutions to that specific example, but it could be
worthwhile to simply write the data and catch the error when the output
device is full).

The extra calls to flush could also be a benefit if some other process
is monitoring the destination file, just to keep track of how far along
the first process is. Someone doing a ‘tail -f’, for instance.

Most of the time it is not worth it to do the calls to flush, especially
if you’re in a tight loop like the one in your example, but in some
special circumstances it can be worth the performance penalty.

4

I think the following If you set “file.sync = true” it would do the same
and
you don’t have to write “file.flush” every time you use a “file.write”.