# Open-uri error

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/open-uri-error/95605>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [June 7, 2006, 8:50am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/open-uri-error/95605 "2006-06-07T08:50:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![curi](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/e68b1a/32.png) [@curi](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/curi)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2006, 8:50am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/open-uri-error/95605/1 "2006-06-07T08:50:16Z")

</div>

I am writing a script to download warcraft 3 replays for me. It got a  
few (which work) then had an error:

URI::InvalidURIError: bad URI(is not URI?): [http://ftp.replays.net/](http://ftp.replays.net/)  
w3g/060607/060606\_mYm]Lucifer(UD)\_vs\_mTw-LasH(Hum)\_TwistedMeadows\_RN.w3g

The URL works in Safari, so I’m not sure what’s going on. My wild  
guess is that Safari accepts technically invalid URLs. Hopefully  
someone knowledgeable can tell me what the issue is. Here’s my code:

require “open-uri”  
path = “/Applications/Warcraft\ III/Replay/auto/”  
files = Dir.glob “#{path}\*”  
count = 0

urls = `lynx -dump http://war3.replays.net/`.split “\n”  
urls = urls.select { |url| url =~ %r-\d{1,3}. [http://ftp.replays.net/](http://ftp.replays.net/)  
w3g- }  
urls = urls.collect { |url| url.sub(%r-\s\*\d{1,3}.\s\*-, “”)}

urls.each do |url|  
filename = url.sub(%r-[http://ftp.replays.net/w3g/](http://ftp.replays.net/w3g/)\d\*/-, “”)  
if not files.include?(filename)  
open(url) do |remote\_file|  
File.open(path + filename, “w”) do |local\_file|  
local\_file.write remote\_file.read  
count += 1  
end  
end  
end  
end

puts “I got #{count} files!”

– Elliot T.

> **[Curiosity Blog – Elliot Temple](https://www.curi.us/blog/)**
>
> A philosophy blog

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![curi](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/e68b1a/32.png) [@curi](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/curi)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2006, 8:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/open-uri-error/95605/2 "2006-06-07T20:26:28Z")

</div>

On Jun 6, 2006, at 11:47 PM, Elliot T. wrote:

> I am writing a script to download warcraft 3 replays for me. It got  
> a few (which work) then had an error:
> 
> URI::InvalidURIError: bad URI(is not URI?): [http://ftp.replays.net/](http://ftp.replays.net/)  
> w3g/060607/060606\_mYm]Lucifer(UD)\_vs\_mTw-LasH(Hum)  
> \_TwistedMeadows\_RN.w3g

I fixed my problem. The key change is:

url = URI.escape(url)

Here’s the current version of the code:

require “open-uri”  
path = “/Applications/Warcraft\ III/Replay/auto/”  
Dir.chdir path  
files = Dir.glob “\*”  
count = 0

urls = `lynx -dump http://war3.replays.net/`.split “\n”  
urls = urls.select {|url| url =~ %r-\d{1,3}. [http://ftp.replays.net/](http://ftp.replays.net/)  
w3g-}  
urls = urls.collect {|url| url.sub(%r-\s\*\d{1,3}.\s\*-, “”)}.uniq

puts “I found #{urls.length} replays!”

urls.each do |url|  
filename = url.sub(%r-[http://ftp.replays.net/w3g/](http://ftp.replays.net/w3g/)\d\*/-, “”)  
url = URI.escape(url)  
if not files.include?(filename)  
puts “Count is #{count}. Getting #{url}”  
open(url) do |remote\_file|  
File.open(path + filename, “w”) do |local\_file|  
local\_file.write remote\_file.read  
count += 1  
end  
end  
end  
end

puts “I got #{count} files!”

– Elliot T.

> **[Curiosity Blog – Elliot Temple](https://www.curi.us/blog/)**
>
> A philosophy blog

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![curi](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/e68b1a/32.png) [@curi](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/curi)\
**Post date:** [June 8, 2006, 10:19am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/open-uri-error/95605/3 "2006-06-08T10:19:23Z")

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On Jun 7, 2006, at 11:23 AM, Elliot T. wrote:

> I fixed my problem. The key change is:
> 
> url = URI.escape(url)

oops. that didn’t work for URLS with [] in them. now i’ve added this  
code:

```
 begin
   get_replay url, filename
 rescue URI::InvalidURIError
   url = url.scan(%r-http://ftp.replays.net/w3g/\d*/-)[0] +

```

CGI.escape(filename)  
begin  
get\_replay url, filename  
rescue URI::InvalidURIError  
STDERR.puts $!  
end  
end

the CGI.escape changes [] but isn’t safe to do on the entire URL (it  
changes slashes as well). observe:

irb(main):013:0\> x = CGI.escape “[http://www.google.com](http://www.google.com)”  
=\> “http%3A%2F%[2Fwww.google.com](http://2Fwww.google.com)”  
irb(main):014:0\> open(x)  
Errno::ENOENT: No such file or directory - http%3A%2F%[2Fwww.google.com](http://2Fwww.google.com)  
from /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.8/open-uri.rb:88:in `initialize' from /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.8/open-uri.rb:88:in `open’  
from (irb):14  
irb(main):015:0\> open “[http://www.google.com](http://www.google.com)”  
=\> #StringIO:0x585b74

I don’t know if I’m doing this the correct way, but it’s working so  
far (got about 60 files).

Elliot