IO vs. File

[Donkey Agony]

Are the following two statements identical?

str = IO.read("test.txt")
str = File.read("test.txt")

I.e., do they both open the file for reading, slurp it into the string,
and close it?

They *appear* to be identical, judging from testing, but the docs are
unclear to me on this. E.g., the page on the IO class, which says ...

Many of the examples in this section use class File,
the only standard subclass of IO. The two classes are
closely associated.

...., shows IO.read, yet the page on the File class does not have a
File.read.

Also, there doesn't appear a similarly simple File.write that does all
the dirty work for you. The most concise I've come up with is:

File.open("test.html", "wb") { |f| f.write(str) }

Am I missing something?

 

[Erik Veenstra]

..., shows IO.read, yet the page on the File class does not

have a File.read.

File::read doesn't exist. IO::read does. But since File is a
subclass of IO, you can do File::read, which actually is
IO::read.

Also, there doesn't appear a similarly simple File.write that
does all the dirty work for you.

True.

gegroet,
Erik V. - http://www.erikveen.dds.nl/

 

[Donkey Agony]

File::read doesn't exist. IO::read does. But since File is a
subclass of IO, you can do File::read, which actually is
IO::read.

Ah, now I understand. Thank you.

 

[Robert Klemme]

Also, there doesn't appear a similarly simple File.write that does all
the dirty work for you. The most concise I've come up with is:

File.open("test.html", "wb") { |f| f.write(str) }

Am I missing something?

No. I think this is on purpose because writing is more dangerous than
reading.

robert

 

[Gavin Sinclair]

Also, there doesn't appear a similarly simple File.write that does all
the dirty work for you. The most concise I've come up with is:

File.open("test.html", "wb") { |f| f.write(str) }

Am I missing something?

No, and I agree it's a nuisance. Matz doesn't consider it to be a
common enough activity to warrant a method, last I heard. I define
File.write myself and use it frequently.

See http://extensions.rubyforge.org or the core/facets project (which
is more current in its maintenance).

Gavin

 

[Donkey Agony]

No, and I agree it's a nuisance. Matz doesn't consider it to be a
common enough activity to warrant a method, last I heard. I define
File.write myself and use it frequently.

See http://extensions.rubyforge.org or the core/facets project (which
is more current in its maintenance).

Wow, bookmarked. Thanks for the reference, I'll certainly use some of
those!