My first Python script crashed because I forgot to close a file

I was working on a simple program yesterday to organize some text files. It ran fine for a few minutes, then just stopped with a weird error about too many open files. I spent an hour checking my logic before a friend asked if I was using 'with open'. I wasn't. I had opened each file but never closed them, so after about 500 files, the system gave up. I fixed it by adding a single 'with' statement. Has anyone else run into a simple mistake that caused a big headache like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

hugo69924d ago

Oh man, that's the worst kind of bug. It's like leaving every faucet in your house on a tiny drip. You don't notice until the basement floods. I see it everywhere now, like not logging out of apps on shared devices or leaving a browser with a hundred tabs open. Small leaks that eventually just break the whole system. Makes you wonder what else we're all leaving open without realizing.

rileyh1024d ago

Disagree, hugo699, sometimes those small leaks are what keep the whole system running without us having to think about it.