Strange behaviors in writing/saving file

Ruby
1

Hi all,

I query a website,extract some info from fetched page, and save/write
the info in txt format. My current problem: I can print all the info to
the screen but only the last line is written/saved to the file. I wonder
what is going on.

Thanks,

Li

##here is the code line to print the results to the screen and save to
the file
File.open(‘test.txt’,‘w’){|f| puts e.inner_text; f.puts e.inner_text}

##screen results:
abacus
(n.)
A manual computing device consisting of a frame holding parallel rods
strung with movable counters.
abacus
(n.)
A slab on the top of the capital of a column.

written/saved file

A slab on the top of the capital of a column.

2

On Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 8:16 AM, Li Chen [email protected] wrote:

abacus
(n.)
A slab on the top of the capital of a column.

written/saved file

A slab on the top of the capital of a column.

I am guessing from the context that the code you posted is in some
sort of loop that fetches a line of text from the website. Perhaps
something like

while (e.inner_text = gets)
File.open(‘test.txt’,‘w’){|f| puts e.inner_text; f.puts e.inner_text}
end

In this case, each time through your loop, you open “test.txt”,
destroying whatever it contained before, write one line, and then
close the file.

If you want to append to the end of the file each time you open it,
you will need to change ‘w’ to ‘a’, in your call to File#open.

–wpd

3

What’s the class of e.inner_text ? Did you try f.write ?

4

Antonin A. wrote:

What’s the class of e.inner_text ? Did you try f.write ?

  1. the class of e.inner_text is String.
  2. the problem is sovled by changine mode ‘w’ to mode ‘a’
  3. either f.write or f.puts saves the last line in mode ‘w’
    but they work well in mode ‘a’

Li

5

On Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 9:10 AM, Li Chen [email protected] wrote:

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for the input.

Now the problem is sovled by changing the mode ‘w’ to ‘a’ as following:

File.open(‘test.txt’,‘a’){|f| puts e.inner_text; f.puts e.inner_text}

Just be aware that text will be appended to the file forever. You
might want to do something at the top of your script to remove or
empty the file, if you don’t want to be confused by past results.

–wpd

6

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for the input.

Now the problem is sovled by changing the mode ‘w’ to ‘a’ as following:

File.open(‘test.txt’,‘a’){|f| puts e.inner_text; f.puts e.inner_text}

Li