   leaving open file handles
  For some reason i''ve always felt it a form of taboo to leave a file handle to an active file open for long periods of time.  I dont know why, but this struck me as a bad idea.Even though my feeling about this may be completly unfounded, could someone help put this issue to rest for me?all comments are appreciated 
  Yes, I agree.  The only problem I''ve ever run into when dealing with file handles is that there are a limited number of them.  So if you''re opening a ton of files, or directories (like, say, listing recursively all the files on your hard disk), you might run out of file handles. 