can1357/oh-my-pi · error · SortError

cannot read: {}: {}

Error message

cannot read: {}: {}

What it means

`SortError::ReadFailed` occurs when the sort builtin cannot read from an already-opened file, quoting the path and the stripped errno. Unlike OpenFailed, the open succeeded but a subsequent read operation failed (I/O error, EISDIR on read, hardware error).

Source

Thrown at crates/pi-builtins/src/sort.rs:2602

const MIN_AUTOMATIC_BUF_SIZE: usize = 512 * 1024; // 512 KiB
const FALLBACK_AUTOMATIC_BUF_SIZE: usize = 32 * 1024 * 1024; // 32 MiB
const MAX_AUTOMATIC_BUF_SIZE: usize = 1024 * 1024 * 1024; // 1 GiB

#[derive(Debug, Error)]
pub enum SortError {
	#[error("{0}")]
	Message(String),

	#[error("write failed: {}: {}", .path.maybe_quote(), strip_errno(.error))]
	WriteFailed { path: OsString, error: std::io::Error },

	#[error("{}", format_disorder(.file, .line_number, .line, .silent))]
	Disorder { file: OsString, line_number: usize, line: String, silent: bool },

	#[error("open failed: {}: {}", .path.maybe_quote(), strip_errno(.error))]
	OpenFailed { path: PathBuf, error: std::io::Error },

	#[error("cannot read: {}: {}", .path.maybe_quote(), strip_errno(.error))]
	ReadFailed { path: PathBuf, error: std::io::Error },

	#[error("failed to open temporary file: {}", strip_errno(.error))]
	OpenTmpFileFailed { error: std::io::Error },

	#[error("could not run compress program '{}': {}", .prog, strip_errno(.error))]
	CompressProgExecutionFailed { prog: String, error: std::io::Error },

	#[error("{} terminated abnormally", .prog.quote())]
	CompressProgTerminatedAbnormally { prog: String },

	#[error("cannot create temporary file in {}:", .path.quote())]
	TmpFileCreationFailed { path: PathBuf },

	#[error("extra operand {}\nfile operands cannot be combined with --files0-from\nTry 'sort --help' for more information.", .file.quote())]
	FileOperandsCombined { file: PathBuf },

View on GitHub (pinned to 9690622007)

Solutions

1. Re-run the sort; transient network/IO errors often clear.
2. Check filesystem health (`dmesg`, `smartctl`) if errors persist.
3. Ensure no other process truncates/rewrites the file during the sort (snapshot or copy first).
4. Copy the file to local disk before sorting if it lives on an unreliable network mount.

Example fix

// before
sort /mnt/nfs/live.log

// after
cp /mnt/nfs/live.log /tmp/live.snapshot.log && sort /tmp/live.snapshot.log

// transient read errors warrant a bounded retry
for attempt in 1..=3 {
    match run_sort() {
        Err(SortError::ReadFailed { path, error }) => {
            eprintln!("attempt {attempt}: read {} failed: {error}", path.display());
            sleep(Duration::from_secs(2u64.pow(attempt - 1)));
        }
        other => { other?; break; }
    }
}

When it happens

Trigger: A read syscall on an input or temp file fails mid-sort — e.g. device I/O error, file truncated concurrently by another process, or attempting to read a special file that rejects reads.

Common situations: NFS/network filesystem staleness or timeouts; concurrent modification or truncation of the input while sorting; failing disk sectors.

Related errors

• write failed: {}: {}
• open failed: {}: {}
• cannot create temporary file in {}:
• Too many levels of symbolic links
• {}: {error}

AI-assisted analysis of can1357/oh-my-pi@9690622007 (2026-08-31). Data as JSON: /api/errors/09e7bcae4525e07a. Report an issue: GitHub.