Question

I’m trying to create a new file and things don’t seem to be working as I expect them too. Here’s what I’ve tried:

File.new "out.txt"
File.open "out.txt"
File.new "out.txt","w"
File.open "out.txt","w"

According to everything I’ve read online all of those should work but every single one of them gives me this:

ERRNO::ENOENT: No such file or directory - out.txt

This happens from IRB as well as a Ruby script. What am I missing?

Answer 1

Use:

File.open("out.txt", [your-option-string]) do |f|
    f.write("write your stuff here")
end

where your options are:

• r – Read only. The file must exist.
• w – Create an empty file for writing.
• a – Append to a file.The file is created if it does not exist.
• r+ – Open a file for update both reading and writing. The file must exist.
• w+ – Create an empty file for both reading and writing.
• a+ – Open a file for reading and appending. The file is created if it does not exist.

In your case, 'w' is preferable.

OR you could have:

out_file = File.new("out.txt", "w")
#...
out_file.puts("write your stuff here")
#...
out_file.close

… but that has the risk of forgetting to call close (such as if an exception is raised, or you return early).