From: "Timothy J. Wood" <tjw@...>
Date: 2002-08-23T13:19:49+09:00
Subject: Bug in gc.c or misunderstanding on my part?



   I was just eyeballing through the Ruby source trying to evaluate it 
for use and came across the following code:

void
Init_stack(addr)
     VALUE *addr;
{
#if defined(__human68k__)
     extern void *_SEND;
     rb_gc_stack_start = _SEND;
#else
     VALUE start;

     if (!addr) addr = &start;
     rb_gc_stack_start = addr;
#endif
}

   This is called from ruby_init() and ruby_run() and the resulting 
value is used in scanning for potential Ruby objects on the native 
stack (which is an interesting idea).

   Now, the part that confuses me are things like rb_funcall().  This 
appears to NOT update the stack base.  So, it seems like it is invalid 
to call rb_funcall() directly (but you could call it if Ruby calls you 
via a Ruby->C binding).  Instead, it seems like you must always call 
ruby_run() at the top level (which really limits the usefulness of the 
embedding API).

   What is the intended semantic of rb_funcall()?  I don't see any 
documentation that would lead me to believe that I can't call it 
directly after loading a script.

-tim