[R] what does this err mean and how to solve it? Error in file(file, ifelse(append, "a", "w"))

[Peter Langfelder]

you should close files that you do not use anymore. the maximum number
of open files is likely 4000 or so. Use close(file) before you open
the next one.

Peter

On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 4:55 PM, Yong Wang <wangyong1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear List
> I am running a loop downloading  web pages and save the html to a
> temporary file (use download.file() )
>  then read (using readLines)  it in for processing;
> finally write useful info from each processed page to a unique file
>
> the problem is once the loop runs up to somewhere near  5000, it will
> throw out an err like below and won't go further.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> Error in file(file, ifelse(append, "a", "w")) :
>  cannot open the connection
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> In the meantime, a request for new connection won't be successful, for
> example, a request for the help page of "file" will trigger err below
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>  ?file
> Error in gzfile(file, "rb") : cannot open the connection
> In addition: Warning message:
> In gzfile(file, "rb") :
>  cannot open compressed file
> 'C:/PROGRA~1/R/R-211~1.1/library/stats/help/aliases.rds', probable
> reason 'Too many open files'
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I am not sure if the problem is too many connections not closed. since
> I close the file connection after each readLines.
> checking with showConnections(all=T) does not show excessive
> connections and closeAllConnections() does not help.
>
> Can any one help me on this?
>
>
> Any answer highly appreciated.
>
> yong
>
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