>>>>> "D" == Dirk Meijer <hawkman.gelooft / gmail.com> writes: D> suppose i write a program that write to a file, infinitely, i'll want to D> shut this program off after a while, the file will not properly close... D> what could actually happen? You can lost data moulon% ls -l xxx ls: xxx: No such file or directory moulon% moulon% ruby -e 'f = File.open("xxx", "w"); f.write("xxx"); exit!' moulon% moulon% ls -l xxx -rw-r--r-- 1 decoux msys 0 2006-06-06 15:49 xxx moulon% Guy Decoux