From: Lennon Day-Reynolds <rcoder@...>
Date: 2004-08-14T07:52:11+09:00
Subject: Re: timeouts with threads and SIGALRM

Eric,

I'm not sure what your problem with the Ruby rebuild is, (though I
might recommend just doing a local build of the 1.8.1 sources, rather
than the Debian package) but I may have an idea about the
SIGALRM/timeout issue you're having.

Is the long-running method calling out into C code? Even something
like a socket operation? If so, that system code may be blocking
signals before they can percolate up to the Ruby layer I would try
sending signals from outside the Ruby process to see if they can
interrupt it during the long method.

Lennon