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cannot destroy connection (?) created by readLines in a tryCatch

8 messages · Gábor Csárdi, Gabriel Becker, Luke Tierney

#
Consider this code. This is R 3.4.2, but based on a quick look at the
NEWS, this has not been fixed.

tryCatch(
  readLines(tempfile(), warn = FALSE)[1],
  error = function(e) NA,
  warning = function(w) NA
)

rm(list=ls(all.names = TRUE))
gc()

showConnections(all = TRUE)

If you run it, you'll get a connection you cannot close(), i.e. the
last showConnections() call prints:

? showConnections(all = TRUE)
  description
0 "stdin"
1 "stdout"
2 "stderr"
3 "/var/folders/59/0gkmw1yj2w7bf2dfc3jznv5w0000gn/T//Rtmpc7JqVS/filecc2044b2ccec"
  class      mode text   isopen   can read can write
0 "terminal" "r"  "text" "opened" "yes"    "no"
1 "terminal" "w"  "text" "opened" "no"     "yes"
2 "terminal" "w"  "text" "opened" "no"     "yes"
3 "file"     "r"  "text" "closed" "yes"    "yes"

AFAICT, readLines should close the connection:

? readLines
function (con = stdin(), n = -1L, ok = TRUE, warn = TRUE, encoding = "unknown",
    skipNul = FALSE)
{
    if (is.character(con)) {
        con <- file(con, "r")
        on.exit(close(con))
    }
    .Internal(readLines(con, n, ok, warn, encoding, skipNul))
}
<environment: namespace:base>

so maybe this just a symptom of an on.exit() issue?

Or am I missing something and it is possible to close the connection?

Thanks,
Gabor
#
Gabor,

You can grab the connection and destroy it via getConnection and then a
standard close call. (it actually lists that it is "closed" already, but
still in the set of existing connections. I can't speak to that difference).
+   readLines(tempfile(), warn = FALSE)[1],

+   error = function(e) NA,

+   warning = function(w) NA

+ )

[1] NA
used (Mb) gc trigger (Mb) max used (Mb)

Ncells 257895 13.8     592000 31.7   416371 22.3

Vcells 536411  4.1    8388608 64.0  1795667 13.7
description


0 "stdin"


1 "stdout"


2 "stderr"


3
"/var/folders/79/l_n_5qr152d2d9d9xs0591lh0000gn/T//RtmpZRcxmh/file128a13bffc77"

  class      mode text   isopen   can read can write

0 "terminal" "r"  "text" "opened" "yes"    "no"

1 "terminal" "w"  "text" "opened" "no"     "yes"

2 "terminal" "w"  "text" "opened" "no"     "yes"

3 "file"     "r"  "text" "closed" "yes"    "yes"
A connection with


description
"/var/folders/79/l_n_5qr152d2d9d9xs0591lh0000gn/T//RtmpZRcxmh/file128a13bffc77"

class       "file"


mode        "r"


text        "text"


opened      "closed"


can read    "yes"


can write   "yes"
description class      mode text   isopen   can read can write

0 "stdin"     "terminal" "r"  "text" "opened" "yes"    "no"

1 "stdout"    "terminal" "w"  "text" "opened" "no"     "yes"

2 "stderr"    "terminal" "w"  "text" "opened" "no"     "yes"


HTH,
~G

On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 10:02 AM, G?bor Cs?rdi <csardi.gabor at gmail.com>
wrote:

  
    
#
On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 7:56 PM, Gabriel Becker <gmbecker at ucdavis.edu> wrote:
Yeah, that's often a possible workaround, but since this connection
was opened by
readLines() internally, I don't necessarily know which one it is. E.g.
I might open multiple
connections to the same file, so I can't choose based on the file name.

Btw. this workaround seems to work for me:

read_lines <- function(con, ...) {
  if (is.character(con)) {
    con <- file(con)
    on.exit(close(con))
  }
  readLines(con, ...)
}

This is basically the same as readLines(), but on.exit() does its job here.
That's another clue that it might be an on.exit() issue. Wild guess:
on.exit() does not run if an internal function errors.
It is closed but not destroyed.

G.
#
On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 12:17 PM, G?bor Cs?rdi <csardi.gabor at gmail.com>
wrote:
It seems to be the  setting of a warning handler in tryCatch that does it
actually; without that, it works as expected, even when errors are caught.

tryCatch(readLines(tempfile(), warn=FALSE), error=function(x) NA)

[1] NA

*Warning message:*

*In file(con, "r") :*

*  cannot open file
'/var/folders/79/l_n_5qr152d2d9d9xs0591lh0000gn/T//RtmpzIZ6Qh/file1ed2e57f2ea':
No such file or directory*
description class      mode text   isopen   can read can write

0 "stdin"     "terminal" "r"  "text" "opened" "yes"    "no"

1 "stdout"    "terminal" "w"  "text" "opened" "no"     "yes"

2 "stderr"    "terminal" "w"  "text" "opened" "no"     "yes"
[1] NA
description


0 "stdin"


1 "stdout"


2 "stderr"


3
"/var/folders/79/l_n_5qr152d2d9d9xs0591lh0000gn/T//RtmpzIZ6Qh/file1ed2300ce801"

  class      mode text   isopen   can read can write

0 "terminal" "r"  "text" "opened" "yes"    "no"

1 "terminal" "w"  "text" "opened" "no"     "yes"

2 "terminal" "w"  "text" "opened" "no"     "yes"

3 "file"     "r"  "text" "closed" "yes"    "yes"


~G

  
    
#
Your guess is wrong. More when I have a sensible keyboard

Sent from my iPhone
On Dec 15, 2017, at 10:21 AM, Gabriel Becker <gmbecker at ucdavis.edu<mailto:gmbecker at ucdavis.edu>> wrote:
On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 12:17 PM, G?bor Cs?rdi <csardi.gabor at gmail.com<mailto:csardi.gabor at gmail.com>>
wrote:

On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 7:56 PM, Gabriel Becker <gmbecker at ucdavis.edu<mailto:gmbecker at ucdavis.edu>>
wrote:
Gabor,

You can grab the connection and destroy it via getConnection and then a
standard close call.

Yeah, that's often a possible workaround, but since this connection
was opened by
readLines() internally, I don't necessarily know which one it is. E.g.
I might open multiple
connections to the same file, so I can't choose based on the file name.

Btw. this workaround seems to work for me:

read_lines <- function(con, ...) {
 if (is.character(con)) {
   con <- file(con)
   on.exit(close(con))
 }
 readLines(con, ...)
}

This is basically the same as readLines(), but on.exit() does its job here.
That's another clue that it might be an on.exit() issue. Wild guess:
on.exit() does not run if an internal function errors.


It seems to be the  setting of a warning handler in tryCatch that does it
actually; without that, it works as expected, even when errors are caught.

tryCatch(readLines(tempfile(), warn=FALSE), error=function(x) NA)

[1] NA

*Warning message:*

*In file(con, "r") :*

*  cannot open file
'/var/folders/79/l_n_5qr152d2d9d9xs0591lh0000gn/T//RtmpzIZ6Qh/file1ed2e57f2ea':
No such file or directory*

showConnections(all=TRUE)

 description class      mode text   isopen   can read can write

0 "stdin"     "terminal" "r"  "text" "opened" "yes"    "no"

1 "stdout"    "terminal" "w"  "text" "opened" "no"     "yes"

2 "stderr"    "terminal" "w"  "text" "opened" "no"     "yes"

tryCatch(readLines(tempfile(), warn=FALSE), warning=function(x) NA)

[1] NA

showConnections(all=TRUE)

 description


0 "stdin"


1 "stdout"


2 "stderr"


3
"/var/folders/79/l_n_5qr152d2d9d9xs0591lh0000gn/T//RtmpzIZ6Qh/file1ed2300ce801"

 class      mode text   isopen   can read can write

0 "terminal" "r"  "text" "opened" "yes"    "no"

1 "terminal" "w"  "text" "opened" "no"     "yes"

2 "terminal" "w"  "text" "opened" "no"     "yes"

3 "file"     "r"  "text" "closed" "yes"    "yes"


~G



(it actually lists that it is "closed" already, but
still in the set of existing connections. I can't speak to that
difference).

It is closed but not destroyed.

G.

tryCatch(

+   readLines(tempfile(), warn = FALSE)[1],

+   error = function(e) NA,

+   warning = function(w) NA

+ )

[1] NA

rm(list=ls(all.names = TRUE))

gc()

        used (Mb) gc trigger (Mb) max used (Mb)

Ncells 257895 13.8     592000 31.7   416371 22.3

Vcells 536411  4.1    8388608 64.0  1795667 13.7



showConnections(all = TRUE)

 description

0 "stdin"

1 "stdout"

2 "stderr"

3
"/var/folders/79/l_n_5qr152d2d9d9xs0591lh0000gn/T//
RtmpZRcxmh/file128a13bffc77"

 class      mode text   isopen   can read can write

0 "terminal" "r"  "text" "opened" "yes"    "no"

1 "terminal" "w"  "text" "opened" "no"     "yes"

2 "terminal" "w"  "text" "opened" "no"     "yes"

3 "file"     "r"  "text" "closed" "yes"    "yes"

con = getConnection(3)

con

A connection with

description
"/var/folders/79/l_n_5qr152d2d9d9xs0591lh0000gn/T//
RtmpZRcxmh/file128a13bffc77"

class       "file"

mode        "r"

text        "text"

opened      "closed"

can read    "yes"

can write   "yes"

close(con)

showConnections(all=TRUE)

 description class      mode text   isopen   can read can write

0 "stdin"     "terminal" "r"  "text" "opened" "yes"    "no"

1 "stdout"    "terminal" "w"  "text" "opened" "no"     "yes"

2 "stderr"    "terminal" "w"  "text" "opened" "no"     "yes"



HTH,
~G

On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 10:02 AM, G?bor Cs?rdi <csardi.gabor at gmail.com<mailto:csardi.gabor at gmail.com>>
wrote:

Consider this code. This is R 3.4.2, but based on a quick look at the
NEWS, this has not been fixed.

tryCatch(
 readLines(tempfile(), warn = FALSE)[1],
 error = function(e) NA,
 warning = function(w) NA
)

rm(list=ls(all.names = TRUE))
gc()

showConnections(all = TRUE)

If you run it, you'll get a connection you cannot close(), i.e. the
last showConnections() call prints:

? showConnections(all = TRUE)
 description
0 "stdin"
1 "stdout"
2 "stderr"
3
"/var/folders/59/0gkmw1yj2w7bf2dfc3jznv5w0000gn/T//Rtmpc7JqVS/
filecc2044b2ccec"
 class      mode text   isopen   can read can write
0 "terminal" "r"  "text" "opened" "yes"    "no"
1 "terminal" "w"  "text" "opened" "no"     "yes"
2 "terminal" "w"  "text" "opened" "no"     "yes"
3 "file"     "r"  "text" "closed" "yes"    "yes"

AFAICT, readLines should close the connection:

? readLines
function (con = stdin(), n = -1L, ok = TRUE, warn = TRUE, encoding =
"unknown",
   skipNul = FALSE)
{
   if (is.character(con)) {
       con <- file(con, "r")
       on.exit(close(con))
   }
   .Internal(readLines(con, n, ok, warn, encoding, skipNul))
}
<environment: namespace:base>

so maybe this just a symptom of an on.exit() issue?

Or am I missing something and it is possible to close the connection?

Thanks,
Gabor

______________________________________________
R-devel at r-project.org<mailto:R-devel at r-project.org> mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel




--
Gabriel Becker, PhD
Scientist (Bioinformatics)
Genentech Research




--
Gabriel Becker, PhD
Scientist (Bioinformatics)
Genentech Research


______________________________________________
R-devel at r-project.org<mailto:R-devel at r-project.org> mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
#
This has nothing to do with on.exit. It is an iteraction between where
the warning is signaled in 'file' and your _exiting_ warning handler.
This combination has the same issue,

tryCatch(file(tempfile(), "r"), warning = identity)
showConnections(all = TRUE)

as does

options(warn=2)
file(tempfile(), "r")
showConnections(all = TRUE)

I haven't looked at the internals of 'file' but it looks like
what it does is

     add an entry to connections table
     warn about non-existent file
     realize it has to fail
     remove the connections table entry
     signal an error

This misses the possibility that the warning can result in a jump
if it is turned into a error or handled by an exiting handler.
It's worth filing a bug report on 'file'.

It's not clear what you are really trying to do, but establishing
an _exiting_ handler for warnings is usually not what you
want. If you are trying to suppress warnings you need to use a
calling handler, e.g. via suppressWarnings. If you want to do
something more sophisticated that does not terminate the
computation on a warniing you can build on what suppressWarnigns
does.

Best,

luke
On Thu, 14 Dec 2017, G?bor Cs?rdi wrote:

            

  
    
#
Thanks for tracking this down. Yeah, I should use suppressWarnings(),
you are right.
Although, readLines() might throw another warning, e.g. for incomplete
last lines,
and you don't necessarily want to suppress that.

TBH I am not sure why that warning is given:

? con <- file(tempfile())
? open(con)
Error in open.connection(con) : cannot open the connection
In addition: Warning message:
In open.connection(con) :
  cannot open file
'/var/folders/59/0gkmw1yj2w7bf2dfc3jznv5w0000gn/T//RtmpilJLXL/filed0ab5adb9a18':
No such file or directory

It seems that open() also throws an error, so why give the warning?
Because it is more specific?
Would it make sense to turn that warning into an error?

Gabor
On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 11:46 PM, <luke-tierney at uiowa.edu> wrote:
1 day later
#
On Fri, 15 Dec 2017, G?bor Cs?rdi wrote:

            
Do whatever makes sense for your context.

My main point is: if you want your computation to be able to handle a
warning and possibly continue after that then you need to use a
calling handler, not an exiting one.

Best,

luke