where is leak in my code? - c#

Here is my code which opens an XML file (old.xml), filter invalid characters and write to another XML file (abc.xml). Finally I will load the XML (abc.xml) again. When executing the followling line, there is exception says the xml file is used by another process,
xDoc.Load("C:\\abc.xml");
Does anyone have any ideas what is wrong? Any leaks in my code and why (I am using "using" keyword all the time, confused to see leaks...)?
Here is my whole code, I am using C# + VSTS 2008 under Windows Vista x64.
// Create an instance of StreamReader to read from a file.
// The using statement also closes the StreamReader.
Encoding encoding = Encoding.GetEncoding("utf-8", new EncoderReplacementFallback(String.Empty), new DecoderReplacementFallback(String.Empty));
using (TextWriter writer = new StreamWriter(new FileStream("C:\\abc.xml", FileMode.Create), Encoding.UTF8))
{
using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(
"C:\\old.xml",
encoding
))
{
int bufferSize = 10 * 1024 * 1024; //could be anything
char[] buffer = new char[bufferSize];
// Read from the file until the end of the file is reached.
int actualsize = sr.Read(buffer, 0, bufferSize);
writer.Write(buffer, 0, actualsize);
while (actualsize > 0)
{
actualsize = sr.Read(buffer, 0, bufferSize);
writer.Write(buffer, 0, actualsize);
}
}
}
try
{
XmlDocument xDoc = new XmlDocument();
xDoc.Load("C:\\abc.xml");
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);
}
EDIT1: I have tried to change the size of buffer from 10M to 1M and it works! I am so confused, any ideas?
EDIT2: I find this issue is very easy to reproduce when the input old XML file is very big, like 100M or something. I am suspecting whether it is a .Net known bug? I am going to using tools like ProcessExplorer/ProcessMonitor to see which process locks the file to keep it from being accessed by XmlDocument.Load.

That works fine for me.
Purely a guess, but maybe a virus checker is scanning the file?
To investigate, try disabling your virus checker and see if it works (and then re-enable your virus checker).
As an aside, there is one way it can leave the file open: if the StreamReader constructor throws an exception; but then you won't reach the XmlDocument stuff anyway... but consider:
using (FileStream fs = new FileStream("C:\\abc.xml", FileMode.Create))
using (TextWriter writer = new StreamWriter(fs, Encoding.UTF8))
{
...
}
Now fs is disposed in the edge-case where new StreamWriter(...) throws. However, I do not believe that this is the problem here.

You running a FileSystemWatcher on the root perhaps?
You can also use ProcessMonitor to see who accesses that file.

The problem is your char[] which seems to be to big. If it is too big, it is located on the large objekt heap, not on the stack. Hence the large object heap is not compacted as long as the software is running, the once allocated space there may not be used again - which looks like a memory leak. Try splitting up your array to smaller chunks.

I second Leppie's suggestion to use ProcessMonitor (or equivalent) to see for sure who is locking the file. Anything else is just speculation.

Your buffer isnt being deallocated, is it?

Have you checked that no other process tries to access the file?

Code works fine. Just checked.

using will call Dispose, but will Dispose call close on the writing stream? If it does not, the system may still consider the file to be open for writing.
I'd try putting in a close of the writer just before then end of its using block.
Edit: Just tried out the code myself as well. Compiled and ran without the problem your are seeing. Try turning off Virus scanners like some others have mentioned and make sure you don't have a window somewhere with the file open.

The fact that it works for some people and not for others makes me think that the file isn't being closed. Close the writer before trying to load the file.

My bet is that you have some Antivirus solution running, which locks the file after it is being closed. To verify, try adding a delay (like, 1 second) before loading the file. If that works, you probably found the cause.

Run Process Explorer
Make sure it's your program locking the file first.

Related

Is it necessary to close a file after calling ReadAllText?

I am doing the following:
if (File.Exists(filePath))
{
string base64 = File.ReadAllText(filePath);
return new ImageContentDTO
{
ImageContentGuid = imageContentGuid,
Base64Data = base64
};
}
This works perfectly fine. What I want to ask is if I need to Close the file or anything similar after I am done reading from it. And if so, how?
No, you don't have to explicitly close the file, File.ReadAllText takes care of that for you.
The documentation contains this information very explicitly:
This method opens a file, reads each line of the file, and then adds each line as an element of a string. It then closes the file.
[...]
The file handle is guaranteed to be closed by this method, even if exceptions are raised.
You don't need to close anything when using File.ReadAllText since the underling stream reader is closed implicitely.
MSDN: File.ReadAllText
Opens a text file, reads all lines of the file, and then closes the
file.
Here's the implementation in .NET 4 (ILSpy):
string result;
using (StreamReader streamReader = new StreamReader(path, encoding))
{
result = streamReader.ReadToEnd();
}
return result;
The using statement disposes the StreamReader (even on error), that also closes it.
I know this question has been answered and this is almost a year now but for those who search and read this question, I would like to suggest you close a file when done with it, or at least do an investigation like my answer shows.
I am no programming expert but I have come across this situation recently.
I created a WinForms c# program and used File.ReadAllText to copy text to a string. Afterwards I tried to delete the file, directly from the folder not through the program, but I got an error that the file was still open in another program. I then stopped running the program and was able to delete the file.
That's my experience in Visual Studio 2012 Ultimate. It might be supposed to do something different, but that's what it did for me.
When I used StreamReader.ReadToEnd then StreamReader.Close on the same file, I had no problem deleting the file while running the program.
You have to close IDisposable instances only, usually by means of using, e.g.:
// StreamReader is IDisposable and should be Closed/Disposed
// either explicitly or by using
using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(filePath)) {
String base64 = sr.ReadToEnd();
...
}
since you don't have an IDisposable instance in your code (File.ReadAllText
returns String which is not IDisposable) you have nothing to Close/Dispose
StreamWriter outputFile = new StreamWriter(#"C:\Users\Marc\Desktop\_App\files\Data" + dat1 + ".txt");
outputFile.WriteLine(sb.ToString());
outputFile.Close();
StreamWriter outputFileex = new StreamWriter(#"C:\Users\Marc\Desktop\_App\files\DataEx" + dat1 + ".txt");
outputFileex.WriteLine(sbex.ToString());
outputFileex.Close();
Here's a working example I just did with a stringbuilder: "sb". If I remove one of those closes' the file gets generated but the file shows up blank with no data. I had to add in a close to get it to work properly.

Debug file used by another process

Using Visual Studio 2010 and im getting "File is used by another process" almost randomly when trying to read a file. Im reading about 10 xml files into memory with the same procedure
The code that breaks is
private static TextReader CreateTextReader(IsolatedStorageFile isolatedStorageFolder, string path)
{
TextReader textReader = null;
if (isolatedStorageFolder == null)
textReader = new StreamReader(path);
else
textReader = new StreamReader(new IsolatedStorageFileStream(path, FileMode.Open, isolatedStorageFolder));
return textReader;
}
The code breaks 10 percent of the time on
textReader = new StreamReader(path);
I personally think its some kind of garbage collection problem, anyone has any tips on how to debug this kind of problem.
Be sure to call .Dispose or .Close on all steam reader operations that could lock the file. That might be your problem as that code works for me as a flat program.
You need to dispose of the TextReader. Use the using statement like
using (TextReader r = CreateTextReader(...))
{
}
Otherwise the file will remain open when you close your application.
EDIT
You're saying in your comments to the question that you're actually already using using - could it be that the file you're trying to read is actually opened by another application? Sometimes antivir solutions lock files while scanning them or stuff like that - will it work after a short while or do you have to reboot or something like that?

StreamWriter not writing out the last few characters to a file

We are having an issue with one server and it's utilization of the StreamWriter class. Has anyone experienced something similar to the issue below? If so, what was the solution to fix the issue?
using( StreamWriter logWriter = File.CreateText( logFileName ) )
{
for (int i = 0; i < 500; i++)
logWriter.WriteLine( "Process completed successfully." );
}
When writing out the file the following output is generated:
Process completed successfully.
... (497 more lines)
Process completed successfully.
Process completed s
Tried adding logWriter.Flush() before close without any help. The more lines of text I write out the more data loss occurs.
Had a very similar issue myself. I found that if I enabled AutoFlush before doing any writes to the stream and it started working as expected.
logWriter.AutoFlush = true;
sometimes even u call flush(), it just won't do the magic. becus Flush() will cause stream to write most of the data in stream except the last block of its buffer.
try
{
// ... write method
// i dont recommend use 'using' for unmanaged resource
}
finally
{
stream.Flush();
stream.Close();
stream.Dispose();
}
Cannot reproduce this.
Under normal conditions, this should not and will not fail.
Is this the actual code that fails ? The text "Process completed" suggests it's an extract.
Any threading involved?
Network drive or local?
etc.
This certainly appears to be a "flushing" problem to me, even though you say you added a call to Flush(). The problem may be that your StreamWriter is just a wrapper for an underlying FileStream object.
I don't typically use the File.CreateText method to create a stream for writing to a file; I usually create my own FileStream and then wrap it with a StreamWriter if desired. Regardless, I've run into situations where I've needed to call Flush on both the StreamWriter and the FileStream, so I imagine that is your problem.
Try adding the following code:
logWriter.Flush();
if (logWriter.BaseStream != null)
logWriter.BaseStream.Flush();
In my case, this is what I found with output file
Case 1: Without Flush() and Without Close()
Character Length = 23,371,776
Case 2: With Flush() and Without Close()
logWriter.flush()
Character Length = 23,371,201
Case 3: When propely closed
logWriter.Close()
Character Length = 23,375,887 (Required)
So, In order to get proper result, always need to close Writer instance.
I faced same problem
Following worked for me
using (StreamWriter tw = new StreamWriter(#"D:\Users\asbalach\Desktop\NaturalOrder\NatOrd.txt"))
{
tw.Write(abc.ToString());// + Environment.NewLine);
}
Using framework 4.6.1 and under heavy stress it still has this problem. I'm not sure why it does this, though i found a way to solve it very differently (which strengthens my feeling its indeed a .net bug).
In my case i tried write huge jagged arrays to disk (video caching).
Since the jagged array is quite large it had to do lot of repeated writes to store a large set of video frames, and despite they where uncompressed and each cache file got exact 1000 frames, the logged cash files had all different sizes.
I had the problem when i used this
//note, generateLogfileName is just a function to create a filename()
using (FileStream fs = new FileStream(generateLogfileName(), FileMode.OpenOrCreate))
{
using (StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(fs)
{
// do your stuff, but it will be unreliable
}
}
However when i provided it an Encoding type, all logged files got an equal size, and the problem was gone.
using (FileStream fs = new FileStream(generateLogfileName(), FileMode.OpenOrCreate))
{
using (StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(fs,Encoding.Unicode))
{
// all data written correctly, no data lost.
}
}
Note also read the file width the same encoding type!
This did the trick for me:
streamWriter.flush();

Can DeflateStream or GZipStream be used to deflate an uncompressed file?

I'm trying to implement file compression to an application. The application has been around for a while, so it needs to be able to read uncompressed documents written by previous versions. I expected that DeflateStream would be able to process an uncompressed file, but for GZipStream I get the "The magic number in GZip header is not correct" error. For DeflateStream I get "Found invalid data while decoding". I guess it does not find the header that marks the file as the type it is.
If it's not possible to simply process an uncompressed file, then 2nd best would be to have a way to determine whether a file is compressed, and choose the method of reading the file. I've found this link: http://blog.somecreativity.com/2008/04/08/how-to-check-if-a-file-is-compressed-in-c/, but this is very implementation specific, and doesn't feel like the right approach. It can also provide false positives (I'm sure this would be rare, but it does indicate that it's not the right approach).
A 3rd option I've considered is to attempt using DeflateStream, and fallback to normal stream IO if an exception occurs. This also feels messy, and causes VS to break at the exception (unless I untick that exception, which I don't really want to have to do).
Of course, I may simply be going about it the wrong way. This is the code I've tried in .Net 3.5:
Stream reader = new FileStream(fileName, FileMode.Open, readOnly ? FileAccess.Read : FileAccess.ReadWrite, readOnly ? FileShare.ReadWrite : FileShare.Read);
using (DeflateStream decompressedStream = new DeflateStream(reader, CompressionMode.Decompress))
{
workspace = (Workspace)new XmlSerializer(typeof(Workspace)).Deserialize(decompressedStream);
if (readOnly)
{
reader.Close();
workspace.FilePath = fileName;
}
else
workspace.SetOpen(reader, fileName);
}
Any ideas?
Thanks!
Luke.
Doesn't your file format have a header? If not, now is the time to add one (you're changing the file format by supporting compression, anyway). Pick a good magic value, make sure the header is extensible (add a version field, or use specific magic values for specific versions), and you're ready to go.
Upon loading, check for the magic value. If not present, use your current legacy loading routines. If present, the header will tell you whether the contents are compressed or not.
Update
Compressing the stream means the file is no longer an XML document, and thus there's not much reason to expect the file can't contain more than your data stream. You really do want a header identifying your file :)
The below is example (pseudo)-code; I don't know if .net has a "substream", SubRangeStream is likely something you'll have to code yourself (DeflateStream probably adds it's own header, so a substream might not be necessary; could turn out useful further down the road, though).
Int64 oldPosition = reader.Position;
reader.Read(magic, 0, magic.length);
if(IsRightMagicValue(magic))
{
Header header = ReadHeader(reader);
Stream furtherReader = new SubRangeStream(reader, reader.Position, header.ContentLength);
if(header.IsCompressed)
{
furtherReader = new DeflateStream(furtherReader, CompressionMode.Decompress);
}
XmlSerializer xml = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Workspace));
workspace = (Workspace) xml.Deserialize(furtherReader);
} else
{
reader.Position = oldPosition;
LegacyLoad(reader);
}
In real-life, I would do things a bit differently - some proper error handling and cleanup, for instance. Also, I wouldn't have the new loader code directly in the IsRightMagicValue block, but rather I'd spin off the work either based on the magic value (one magic value per file version), or I would keep a "common header" portion with fields common to all versions. For both, I'd use a Factory Method to return an IWorkspaceReader depending on the file version.
Can't you just create a wrapper class/function for reading the file and catch the exception? Something like
try
{
// Try return decompressed stream
}
catch(InvalidDataException e)
{
// Assume it is already decompressed and return it as it is
}

ZIP file created with SharpZipLib cannot be opened on Mac OS X

Argh, today is the day of stupid problems and me being an idiot.
I have an application which creates a zip file containing some JPEGs from a certain directory. I use this code in order to:
read all files from the directory
append each of them to a ZIP file
using (var outStream = new FileStream("Out2.zip", FileMode.Create))
{
using (var zipStream = new ZipOutputStream(outStream))
{
foreach (string pathname in pathnames)
{
byte[] buffer = File.ReadAllBytes(pathname);
ZipEntry entry = new ZipEntry(Path.GetFileName(pathname));
entry.DateTime = now;
zipStream.PutNextEntry(entry);
zipStream.Write(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
}
}
}
All works well under Windows, when I open the file e. g. with WinRAR, the files are extracted. But as soon as I try to unzip my archive on Mac OS X, it only creates a .cpgz file. Pretty useless.
A normal .zip file created manually with the same files on Windows is extracted without any problems on Windows and Mac OS X.
I found the above code on the Internet, so I am not absolutely sure if the whole thing is correct. I wonder if it is needed to use zipStream.Write() in order to write directly to the stream?
got the exact same problem today. I tried implementing the CRC stuff as proposed but it didn't help.
I finaly found the solution on this page: http://community.sharpdevelop.net/forums/p/7957/23476.aspx#23476
As a result, I just had to add this line in my code:
oZIPStream.UseZip64 = UseZip64.Off;
And the file opens up as it should on MacOS X :-)
Cheers
fred
I don't know for sure, because I am not very familiar with either SharpZipLib or OSX , but I still might have some useful insight for you.
I've spent some time wading through the zip spec, and actually I wrote DotNetZip, which is a zip library for .NET, unrelated to SharpZipLib.
Currently on the user forums for DotNetZip, there's a discussion going on about zip files generated by DotNetZip that cannot be read on OSX. One of the people using the library is having a problem that seems similar to what you are seeing. Except I have no idea what a .cpgxz file is.
We tracked it down, a little. At this point the most promising theory is that OSX does not like "bit 3" in the "general purpose bitfield" in the header of each zip entry.
Bit 3 is not new. PKWare added bit 3 to the spec 17 years ago. It was intended to support streaming generation of archives, in the way that SharpZipLib works. DotNetZip also has a way to produce a zipfile as it is streamed out, and it will also set bit-3 in the zip file if used in this way, although normally DotNetZip will produce a zipfile with bit-3 unset in it.
From what we can tell, when bit 3 is set, the OSX zip reader (whatever it is - like I said I'm not familiar with OSX) chokes on the zip file. The same zip contents produced without bit 3, allows the zip file to be opened. Actually it's not as simple as just flipping one bit - the presence of the bit signals the presence of other metadata. So I am using "bit 3" as a shorthand for all that.
So the theory is that bit 3 causes the problem. I haven't tested this myself. There's been some impedance mismatch on the communication with the person who has the OSX machine - so it is unresolved as yet.
But, if this theory holds, it would explain your situation: that WinRar and any Windows machine can open the file, but OSX cannot.
On the DotNetZip forums, we had a discussion about what to do about the problem. As near as I can tell, the OSX zip reader is broken, and cannot handle bit 3, so the workaround is to produce a zip file with bit 3 unset. I don't know if SharpZipLib can be convinced to do that.
I do know that if you use DotNetZip, and use the normal ZipFile class, and save to a seekable stream (like a filesystem file), you will get a zip that does not have bit 3 set. If the theory is correct, it should open with no problem on the Mac, every time. This is the result the DotNetZip user has reported. It's just one result so not generalizable yet, but it looks plausible.
example code for your scenario:
using (ZipFile zip = new ZipFile()
{
zip.AddFiles(pathnames);
zip.Save("Out2.zip");
}
Just for the curious, in DotNetZip you will get bit 3 set if you use the ZipFile class and save it to a nonseekable stream (like ASPNET's Response.OutputStream) or if you use the ZipOutputStream class in DotNetZip, which always writes forward only (no seeking back).
I think SharpZipLib's ZipOutputStream is also always "forward only."
So, I searched for a few more examples on how to use SharpZipLib and I finally got it to work on Windows and os x. Basically I added the "Crc32" of the file to the zip archive. No idea what this is though.
Here is the code that worked for me:
using (var outStream = new FileStream("Out3.zip", FileMode.Create))
{
using (var zipStream = new ZipOutputStream(outStream))
{
Crc32 crc = new Crc32();
foreach (string pathname in pathnames)
{
byte[] buffer = File.ReadAllBytes(pathname);
ZipEntry entry = new ZipEntry(Path.GetFileName(pathname));
entry.DateTime = now;
entry.Size = buffer.Length;
crc.Reset();
crc.Update(buffer);
entry.Crc = crc.Value;
zipStream.PutNextEntry(entry);
zipStream.Write(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
}
zipStream.Finish();
// I dont think this is required at all
zipStream.Flush();
zipStream.Close();
}
}
Explanation from cheeso:
CRC is Cyclic Redundancy Check - it's a checksum on the entry data. Normally the header for each entry in a zip file contains a bunch of metadata, including some things that cannot be known until all the entry data has been streamed - CRC, Uncompressed size, and compressed size. When generating a zipfile through a streamed output, the zip spec allows setting a bit (bit 3) to specify that these three data fields will immediately follow the entry data.
If you use ZipOutputStream, normally as you write the entry data, it is compressed and a CRC is calculated, and the 3 data fields are written immediately after the file data.
What you've done is streamed the data twice - the first time implicitly as you calculate the CRC on the file before writing it. If my theory is correct, the what is happening is this: When you provide the CRC to the zipStream before writing the file data, this allows the CRC to appear in its normal place in the entry header, which keeps OSX happy. I'm not sure what happens to the other two quantities (compressed and uncompressed size).
I had exactly the same problem, my mistake was (and in your example code as well) that I didn't supply the file lenght for each entry.
Example code:
...
ZipEntry entry = new ZipEntry(Path.GetFileName(pathname));
entry.DateTime = now;
var fileInfo = new FileInfo(pathname)
entry.size = fileInfo.lenght;
...
I was separating the folder names with a backslash... when I changed this to a forward slash it worked!
What's going on with the .cpgz file is that Archive Utility is being launched by a file with a .zip extension. Archive Utility examines the file and thinks it isn't compressed, so it's compressing it. For some bizarre reason, .cpgz (CPIO archiving + gzip compression) is the default. You can set a different default in Archive Utility's Preferences.
If you do indeed discover this is a problem with OS X's zip decoder, please file a bug. You can also try using the ditto command-line tool to unpack it; you may get a better error message. Of course, OS X also ships unzip, the Info-ZIP utility, but I'd expect that to work.
I agree with Cheeso's answer however if the Input file size is greater than 2GB then byte[] buffer = File.ReadAllBytes(pathname); will throw an IO exception.
So i modified Cheeso code and it works like a charm for all the files.
.
long maxDataToBuffer = 104857600;//100MB
using (var outStream = new FileStream("Out3.zip", FileMode.Create))
{
using (var zipStream = new ZipOutputStream(outStream))
{
Crc32 crc = new Crc32();
foreach (string pathname in pathnames)
{
tempBuffLength = maxDataToBuffer;
FileStream fs = System.IO.File.OpenRead(pathname);
ZipEntry entry = new ZipEntry(Path.GetFileName(pathname));
entry.DateTime = now;
entry.Size = buffer.Length;
crc.Reset();
long totalBuffLength = 0;
if (fs.Length <= tempBuffLength) tempBuffLength = fs.Length;
byte[] buffer = null;
while (totalBuffLength < fs.Length)
{
if ((fs.Length - totalBuffLength) <= tempBuffLength)
tempBuffLength = (fs.Length - totalBuffLength);
totalBuffLength += tempBuffLength;
buffer = new byte[tempBuffLength];
fs.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
crc.Update(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
buffer = null;
}
entry.Crc = crc.Value;
zipStream.PutNextEntry(entry);
tempBuffLength = maxDataToBuffer;
fs = System.IO.File.OpenRead(pathname);
totalBuffLength = 0;
if (fs.Length <= tempBuffLength) tempBuffLength = fs.Length;
buffer = null;
while (totalBuffLength < fs.Length)
{
if ((fs.Length - totalBuffLength) <= tempBuffLength)
tempBuffLength = (fs.Length - totalBuffLength);
totalBuffLength += tempBuffLength;
buffer = new byte[tempBuffLength];
fs.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
zipStream.Write(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
buffer = null;
}
fs.Close();
}
zipStream.Finish();
// I dont think this is required at all
zipStream.Flush();
zipStream.Close();
}
}
I had a similar problem but on Windows 7. I updated to the as of this writing latest version of ICSharpZipLib 0.86.0.518. From then on I could no longer decompress any ZIP archives created with the code that was working so far.
There error messages were different depending on the tool I tried to extract with:
Unknown compression method.
Compressed size in local header does not match that of central directory header in new zip file.
What did the trick was to remove the CRC calculation as mentioned here: http://community.sharpdevelop.net/forums/t/8630.aspx
So I removed the line that is:
entry.Crc = crc.Value
And from then on I could again unzip the ZIP archives with any third party tool. I hope this helps someone.
There are two things:
Ensure your underlying output stream is seekable, or SharpZipLib won't be able to back up and fill in any ZipEntry fields that you omitted (size, crc, compressed size, ...). As a result, SharpZipLib will force "bit 3" to be enabled. The background has been explained pretty well in previous answers.
Fill in ZipEntry.Size, or explicitly set stream.UseZip64 = UseZip64.Off. The default is to conservatively assume the stream could be very large. Unzipping then requires "pk 4.5" support.
I encountered weird behavior when archive is empty (no entries inside it) it can not be opened on MAC - generates cpgz only. The idea was to put a dummy .txt file in it in case when no files for archiving.

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