File Closing Problem in 2.3 and 2.4, Not in 2.5

[rweth]

Martin v. Löwis wrote:
> Carroll, Barry schrieb:
>> What I want to know is:
>>
>> * has anyone else encountered a problem like this, * how was the
>> problem corrected, * can the fix be retro-fitted to 2.5 and 2.4?
> 
> From your description, I suspect an error in your code. Your description
> indicates that you don't expect to have more than five files open
> simultaneously. Yet, the error message "Too many open files" occurs when
> you open many more files (in the order of hundreds of files).
> 
> It is very unlikely that there is a bug in Python where it would fail to
> close a file when .close() is explicitly invoked on it (as your
> description suggests that you do), so if you get that error message, it
> can only mean that you fail to close some files.
> 
> Notice that you may have other files open, as well, and that those also
> count towards the limit.
> 
> As a debugging utility, you can use Sysinternal's process explorer.
> Make the program halt (not exit) when the exception occurs (e.g. by
> having it sleep(1) in a loop), then view all open handles in the
> process explorer (check the menu if it doesn't display them initially).
> 
> Regards,
> Martin

I agree with Martin .. this code to close is solid.

Make certain you are really closing the files when you think you should. 
I am pretty sure you are not. Look at the code that closes the files 
closely. Put a print statement in the block that is supposed to close 
the files (may bee even a raw_input("closing file" + afile)  statement).

My guess is that you won't see the print statements trigger when you 
though they should .. they may be out of "the loop" you thought that 
they were in.