# Handling many files inside dir

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/handling-many-files-inside-dir/163006>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [March 16, 2009, 3:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/handling-many-files-inside-dir/163006 "2009-03-16T15:25:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![bary](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bary](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bary)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 3:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/handling-many-files-inside-dir/163006/1 "2009-03-16T15:25:16Z")

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Hello,

im trying to process a directory that contains many text files. I want  
to read each file, store the text inside file and then move to the next  
file. I used the following code but at the end i get an error about  
Permission Denied. Can someone tell me what im doing wrong.

#get list of files

basedir = “C:/rubyfolder”  
Dir.chdir(basedir)  
Dir.open(basedir) do |dir|  
dir.each do |file|  
x = file  
myfile = File.open(x, “r”)  
x.close  
dataclass = Manipulate.new(myfile)  
end  
end

thanks in advance

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bary](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bary](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bary)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 7:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/handling-many-files-inside-dir/163006/2 "2009-03-16T19:09:17Z")

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On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 7:52 PM, Bary B. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)  
wrote:

> x = file  
> myfile = File.open(x, “r”)  
> x.close  
> dataclass = Manipulate.new(myfile)  
> end  
> end  
> Hello Barry,

Your error probably has nothing to do with ruby. Check whether you  
(the user this ruby process is running as) has read access to  
C:/rubyfolder and the files within. The first couple lines of the  
error stacktrace should help you track down what you don’t have  
permissions on.

In the meantime, some other observations:

1: --------  
Dir.open(basedir) do |dir|  
dir.each do |file|  
…

is equivalent to:

Dir.foreach(basedir) do |file|  
…

2: --------  
dir.each do |file|  
x = file

This is redundant. All you’re doing is creating another reference  
(‘x’) to the same object referenced by ‘file’. If you prefer the name  
‘x’, you might as well write ‘dir.each do |x|’. But more likely  
you’ll just want to use the ‘file’ block variable directly (or perhaps  
rename it to ‘filename’).

3: --------  
x.close

This won’t work. Dir#each passes each filename into the block as a  
String. So ‘x’ won’t have a #close method. On a related note, a nice  
way to ensure a file is closed after you’re done with it is to use the  
block form of File#open:

dataclass = File.open(filename) do |file|  
Manipulate.new(file)  
end

Hope some of that is helpful.  
lasitha

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bary](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bary](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bary)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 7:31pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/handling-many-files-inside-dir/163006/3 "2009-03-16T19:31:03Z")

</div>

On 16.03.2009 15:22, Bary B. wrote:

> im trying to process a directory that contains many text files. I want  
> to read each file, store the text inside file and then move to the next  
> file. I used the following code but at the end i get an error about  
> Permission Denied. Can someone tell me what im doing wrong.

Where do you get that error? Can you provide the stacktrace and  
indicate where that is in the script?

> #get list of files
> 
> basedir = “C:/rubyfolder”  
> Dir.chdir(basedir)  
> Dir.open(basedir) do |dir|

This won’t work as soon as basedir is a relative path!

> dir.each do |file|  
> x = file  
> myfile = File.open(x, “r”)  
> x.close  
> dataclass = Manipulate.new(myfile)  
> end  
> end
> 
> thanks in advance

See also lasitha’s excellent remarks.

Cheers

robert