[#109403] [Ruby master Feature#18951] Object#with to set and restore attributes around a block — "byroot (Jean Boussier)" <noreply@...>

Issue #18951 has been reported by byroot (Jean Boussier).

23 messages 2022/08/01

[#109423] [Ruby master Misc#18954] DevMeeting-2022-08-18 — "mame (Yusuke Endoh)" <noreply@...>

Issue #18954 has been reported by mame (Yusuke Endoh).

10 messages 2022/08/04

[#109449] [Ruby master Feature#18959] Handle gracefully nil kwargs eg. **nil — "LevLukomskyi (Lev Lukomskyi)" <noreply@...>

Issue #18959 has been reported by LevLukomskyi (Lev Lukomskyi).

27 messages 2022/08/08

[#109456] [Ruby master Bug#18960] Module#using raises RuntimeError when called at toplevel from wrapped script — "shioyama (Chris Salzberg)" <noreply@...>

Issue #18960 has been reported by shioyama (Chris Salzberg).

15 messages 2022/08/09

[#109550] [Ruby master Feature#18965] Further Thread::Queue improvements — "byroot (Jean Boussier)" <noreply@...>

Issue #18965 has been reported by byroot (Jean Boussier).

14 messages 2022/08/18

[#109575] [Ruby master Bug#18967] Segmentation fault in stackprof with Ruby 2.7.6 — "RubyBugs (A Nonymous)" <noreply@...>

Issue #18967 has been reported by RubyBugs (A Nonymous).

10 messages 2022/08/19

[#109598] [Ruby master Bug#18970] CRuby adds an invalid header to bin/bundle (and others) which makes it unusable in Bash on Windows — "Eregon (Benoit Daloze)" <noreply@...>

Issue #18970 has been reported by Eregon (Benoit Daloze).

17 messages 2022/08/20

[#109645] [Ruby master Bug#18973] Kernel#sprintf: %c allows codepoints above 127 for 7-bits ASCII encoding — "andrykonchin (Andrew Konchin)" <noreply@...>

Issue #18973 has been reported by andrykonchin (Andrew Konchin).

8 messages 2022/08/23

[#109689] [Ruby master Misc#18977] DevMeeting-2022-09-22 — "mame (Yusuke Endoh)" <noreply@...>

Issue #18977 has been reported by mame (Yusuke Endoh).

16 messages 2022/08/25

[#109707] [Ruby master Feature#18980] Re-reconsider numbered parameters: `it` as a default block parameter — "k0kubun (Takashi Kokubun)" <noreply@...>

Issue #18980 has been reported by k0kubun (Takashi Kokubun).

40 messages 2022/08/26

[#109756] [Ruby master Feature#18982] Add an `exception: false` argument for Queue#push, Queue#pop, SizedQueue#push and SizedQueue#pop — "byroot (Jean Boussier)" <noreply@...>

Issue #18982 has been reported by byroot (Jean Boussier).

11 messages 2022/08/29

[#109773] [Ruby master Misc#18984] Doc for Range#size for Float/Rational does not make sense — "masasakano (Masa Sakano)" <noreply@...>

Issue #18984 has been reported by masasakano (Masa Sakano).

7 messages 2022/08/29

[ruby-core:109403] [Ruby master Feature#18951] Object#with to set and restore attributes around a block

From: "byroot (Jean Boussier)" <noreply@...>
Date: 2022-08-01 17:52:26 UTC
List: ruby-core #109403
Issue #18951 has been reported by byroot (Jean Boussier).

----------------------------------------
Feature #18951: Object#with to set and restore attributes around a block
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/18951

* Author: byroot (Jean Boussier)
* Status: Open
* Priority: Normal
----------------------------------------
### Use case

A very common pattern in Ruby, especially in testing is to save the value of an attribute, set a new value, and then restore the old value in an `ensure` clause.

e.g. in unit tests

```ruby
def test_something_when_enabled
  enabled_was, SomeLibrary.enabled = SomeLibrary.enabled, true
  # test things
ensure
  SomeLibrary.enabled = enabled_was
end
```

Or sometime in actual APIs:

```ruby
def with_something_enabled
  enabled_was = @enabled
  @enabled = true
  yield
ensure
  @enabled = enabled_was
end
```

There is no inherent problem with this pattern, but it can be easy to make a mistake, for instance the unit test example:

```ruby
def test_something_when_enabled
  some_call_that_may_raise
  enabled_was, SomeLibrary.enabled = SomeLibrary.enabled, true
  # test things
ensure
  SomeLibrary.enabled = enabled_was
end
```

In the above if `some_call_that_may_raise` actually raises, `SomeLibrary.enabled` is set back to `nil` rather than its original value. I've seen this mistake quite frequently.

### Proposal

I think it would be very useful to have a method on Object to implement this pattern in a correct and easy to use way. The naive Ruby implementation would be:

```ruby
class Object
  def with(**attributes)
    old_values = attributes.dup
    attributes.each_key do |key|
      old_values[key] = public_send(key)
    end
    begin
      attributes.each do |key, value|
        public_send("#{key}=", value)
      end
      yield
    ensure
      old_values.each do |key, old_value|
        public_send("#{key}=", old_value)
      end
    end
  end
end
```

NB: `public_send` is used because I don't think such method should be usable if the accessors are private.

With usage:

```ruby
def test_something_when_enabled
  SomeLibrary.with(enabled: true) do
    # test things
  end
end
```

```ruby
GC.with(measure_total_time: true, auto_compact: false) do
  # do something
end
```

### Alternate names and signatures

If `#with` isn't good, I can also think of:

  - `Object#set`
  - `Object#apply`

But the `with_` prefix is by far the most used one when implementing methods that follow this pattern.

Also if accepting a Hash is dimmed too much, alternative signatures could be:

  - `Object#set(attr_name, value)`
  - `Object#set(attr1, value1, [attr2, value2], ...)`





-- 
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/

Unsubscribe: <mailto:ruby-core-request@ruby-lang.org?subject=unsubscribe>
<http://lists.ruby-lang.org/cgi-bin/mailman/options/ruby-core>

In This Thread

Prev Next