What does explicitely calling close -- much less at the very end of a script, with no further code following it -- accomplish?

The short answer is: very little. However we all know that code has a tendency to both grow and propagate over time. It may be that later on either you or someone else will add a whole heap of extra processing onto the end of your script at which point it would be prudent to close the file first. By having the close in there anyway you (or the other programmer) can add their code after it without even thinking about what other housekeeping might be advisable.

While you are smart enough to consider limitations on the number of file descriptors, some other programmer who cargo-cults your routine into a massive loop over N different filehandles may not. So, the close does no harm and helps to avoid potential problems later.

while it's of course always a good idea to check for errors, what would an inability to close a file signify for the script?

More usually it is not the closing of the file per se which it is desirable to test, but rather the implicit flush and/or lock release. A failure of those may have serious consequences for data integrity so it is as well to inform the user of such a failure. Whether that constitutes a fatal error would depend on the context.

All just my opinion, of course.

In reply to Re^3: Identifying unmatched data in a database by hippo
in thread Identifying unmatched data in a database by ardibehest

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