Question

I’m trying to insert a large amount of information into a Sqlite3 database using a ruby script. After 250 db_prepare_location.execute’s to do this, it stops working saying:

.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/sqlite3-1.3.6/lib/sqlite3/statement.rb:67:in `step': unable to open database file (SQLite3::CantOpenException)
    from /Users/ashley/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/sqlite3-1.3.6/lib/sqlite3/statement.rb:67:in `execute'
    from programs.rb:57:in `get_program_details'
    from programs.rb:22:in `block in get_link'
    from /Users/ashley/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/lib/ruby/1.9.1/csv.rb:1768:in `each'
    from /Users/ashley/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/lib/ruby/1.9.1/csv.rb:1202:in `block in foreach'
    from /Users/ashley/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/lib/ruby/1.9.1/csv.rb:1340:in `open'
    from /Users/ashley/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/lib/ruby/1.9.1/csv.rb:1201:in `foreach'
    from programs.rb:20:in `get_link'
    from programs.rb:63:in `<module:Test>'
    from programs.rb:15:in `<main>'

And here’s my code:

require 'net/http'
require 'json'
require 'nokogiri'
require 'open-uri'
require 'csv'
require 'sqlite3'
require "bundler/setup"
require "capybara"
require "capybara/dsl"

Capybara.run_server = false
Capybara.default_driver = :selenium
Capybara.current_driver = :selenium

module Test
  class Tree
    include Capybara::DSL

    def get_link
      CSV.foreach("links.csv") do |row|
        link = row[0]
        get_details(link)
      end
    end

    def get_details(link)
      db = SQLite3::Database.open "development.sqlite3"
      address = []
      address_text = []
      visit("#{link}")
      name = find("#listing_detail_header").find("h3").text
      page.find(:xpath, "//div[@id='listing_detail_header']").all(:xpath, "//span/span").each {|span| address << span }
      if address.size == 4
        street_address = address[0].text
        address.shift
        address.each {|a| address_text << a.text }
        city_state_address = address_text.join(", ")
      else
        puts link
        street_address = ""
        city_state_address = ""
      end
      if page.has_css?('.provider-click_to_call')
        find(".provider-click_to_call").click
        phone_number = find("#phone_number").text.gsub(/[()]/, "").gsub(" ", "-")
      else
        phone_number = ""
      end
      if page.has_css?('.provider-website_link')
        website = find(".provider-website_link")[:href]
      else
        website = ""
      end
      description = find(".listing_details_list").find("p").text
      db_prepare_location = db.prepare("INSERT INTO programs(name, city_state_address, street_address, phone_number, website, description) VALUES (?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?)")
      db_prepare_location.bind_params name, city_state_address, street_address, phone_number, website, description
      db_prepare_location.execute
    end
end


test = Test::Tree.new
test.get_link
end

What is the problem here and what can I do to fix it? Let me know if additional info is needed.

Answer 1

You could be running out file descriptors. Every time you call get_details, you open the SQLite database:

db = SQLite3::Database.open "development.sqlite3"

but you never explicitly close it; instead, you’re relying on the garbage collector to clean up all your dbs and close all your file descriptors. Each time you open the database, you need to allocate a file descriptor, closing the database frees the file descriptor. If you’re calling get_details faster than the GC can clean things up, you will run out of file descriptors and subsequent SQLite3::Database.open calls will fail.

Try adding db.close at the end of get_details.

You’ll probably have to close the prepared statement as well so you should db_prepare_location.close before db.close:

def get_details
  #...
  db_prepare_location.close
  db.close
end

Yes, Ruby has garbage collection but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have to manage your resources by hand.

Another option (which DGM was hinting at) would be to open a connection to the database in your constructor:

def initialize
  @db = SQLite3::Database.open "development.sqlite3"
end

and then drop your SQLite3::Database.open call in get_details and use @db instead. You wouldn’t need a db.close in get_details anymore but you’d still want the db_prepare_location.close call.