file.close()

[Jeff Epler]

You haven't
demonstrated a case where there actually is an I/O error that occurs
when .close gets called.

What makes you believe that a Python file object's "close" can never error?
"close" corresponds to the fclose() function of the C standard library,
and the manpages have plenty to say on the subject (see below).

I just created a small filesystem (1000 1k blocks, over half of which
was used by filesystem overhead) and got Python to do this:Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
IOError: [Errno 28] No space left on device

Curiously enough, this doesn't even print the 'Exception in __del__ ignored' message:even though the failed stdio fclose must still have been called.

stdio buffering kept the last few bytes of the f.write() from actually
being sent to the disk, but the f.close() call must dump them to the disk,
at which time the "disk full" condition is actually seen. While I had
to contrive this situation for this message, it's exactly the kind of
thing that will to happen to you when your software is at the customer's
site and you've left for a month in rural Honduras where there aren't
any easily-accessible phones, let alone easy internet access.

Jeff

[from `man fclose']
RETURN VALUE
Upon successful completion 0 is returned. Otherwise, EOF is returned
and the global variable errno is set to indicate the error. In either
case any further access (including another call to fclose()) to the
stream results in undefined behaviour.
[...]
The fclose function may also fail and set errno for any of the errors
specified for the routines close(2), write(2) or fflush(3).

[from `man close']
ERRORS
EBADF fd isn’t a valid open file descriptor.

EINTR The close() call was interrupted by a signal.

EIO An I/O error occurred.

[from `man write']
ERRORS
EBADF fd is not a valid file descriptor or is not open for writing.

EINVAL fd is attached to an object which is unsuitable for writing.

EFAULT buf is outside your accessible address space.

EFBIG An attempt was made to write a file that exceeds the implementa-
tion-defined maximum file size or the process’ file size limit,
or to write at a position past than the maximum allowed offset.

EPIPE fd is connected to a pipe or socket whose reading end is closed.
When this happens the writing process will also receive a SIG-
PIPE signal. (Thus, the write return value is seen only if the
program catches, blocks or ignores this signal.)

EAGAIN Non-blocking I/O has been selected using O_NONBLOCK and the
write would block.

EINTR The call was interrupted by a signal before any data was writ-
ten.

ENOSPC The device containing the file referred to by fd has no room for
the data.

EIO A low-level I/O error occurred while modifying the inode.

Other errors may occur, depending on the object connected to fd.

[from `man fflush']
ERRORS
EBADF Stream is not an open stream, or is not open for writing.

The function fflush may also fail and set errno for any of the errors
specified for the routine write(2).

 

[Erik Max Francis]

What makes you believe that a Python file object's "close" can never
error?
"close" corresponds to the fclose() function of the C standard
library,
and the manpages have plenty to say on the subject (see below).

I never made any such claim. I was simply countering someone _else_
making that claim, who used a Python session snippet to try to
demonstrate it, that they had demonstrated no such thing. He simply
called the close method twice, which had gave no indication of what he
was looking for.

 

[Dennis Lee Bieber]

Erik Max Francis fed this fish to the penguins on Sunday 27 July 2003
08:24 pm:

demonstrate it, that they had demonstrated no such thing. He simply
called the close method twice, which had gave no indication of what he
was looking for.

Which I will blame upon my long history on a system/language where
closing a closed file /does/ generate an error...

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