can1357/oh-my-pi · error · SortError

open failed: {}: {}

Error message

open failed: {}: {}

What it means

`SortError::OpenFailed` is raised when the sort builtin cannot open a named file operand, quoting the path and the stripped errno (e.g. No such file or directory, Permission denied). It wraps the std::io::Error from the open call.

Source

Thrown at crates/pi-builtins/src/sort.rs:2599

// The automatic buffer heuristics clamp to this range to avoid
// over-committing memory on constrained systems while still keeping
// reasonably large chunks for typical workloads.
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())]

View on GitHub (pinned to 9690622007)

Solutions

1. Verify the path exists and is a regular file (`ls -l <path>`).
2. Check permissions on the file and its parent directories.
3. Use an absolute path or correct the working directory.
4. If the file may legitimately be absent, fall back to reading stdin (`-` or piping).

Example fix

// before
sort data.txt  # file in another directory

// after
sort ./logs/data.txt

for f in input_files {
    match std::fs::metadata(f) {
        Ok(m) if m.is_file() => {}
        Ok(_) => eprintln!("{f} is not a regular file"),
        Err(e) => eprintln!("cannot access {f}: {e}"),
    }
}

match sort_result {
    Err(SortError::OpenFailed { path, error }) => {
        eprintln!("cannot open {}: {error}", path.display());
    }
    Err(e) => eprintln!("sort: {e}"),
    Ok(_) => {}
}

When it happens

Trigger: Passing a file operand whose path does not exist, is misspelled, is a directory, or lacks read permission to the sort builtin.

Common situations: Typos in paths; relative paths evaluated from the wrong working directory; file deleted between listing and sorting; reading from a path that requires elevated permissions.

Understand the failure class

Background: "File not found" and ENOENT errors: why libraries can't find a file that should exist — this error's family across 50 libraries.

Related errors

• write failed: {}: {}
• cannot read: {}: {}
• 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/e3df96cddeceb399. Report an issue: GitHub.