[R] newbie: closing unused connection + readline

[Stavros Macrakis]

On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 8:34 AM, Aval Sarri <aval.sarri at gmail.com> wrote:
> # Create a socket from which to read lines - one at a time (record)
> reader.socket <-   socketConnection( host = 'localhost', 5000,
>                                     server = TRUE, blocking = TRUE,
>                                     open = "r", encoding = getOption("encoding") );
> # now read each record and split/validate it using read.table
> repeat {
>  # here for each line I am opening new connection! how to avoid it?
>  line.raw <- textConnection(readLines( reader.socket, n = 1, ok = TRUE));

What is the function of textConnection here?  Is read.table
incompatible with socketConnection for some reason?

>  line.raw <- read.table(line.raw, sep=",");

> ...at the end of script I am getting "closing unused connection" warning....

This is not a problem in itself.  For some reason, R gives a warning
when connections are garbage collected.  Of course, that can be a
symptom of poor connection management, but not necessarily.

In the present case, you are creating many unnecessary
textConnections, and R correctly garbage collects them.

            -s