From: Brian Buckley <briankbuckley@...>
Date: 2005-12-06T01:54:33+09:00
Subject: limiting how long a method is permiited to run

Hello all,

Is there a means of limiting how long a method is permiited to run?  I
want to be able to mark a method with a number and have the method
throw, say, a TooMuchTimeException if the running time exceeds this
number.

I am envisioning declaratively applying such limits, either in the
class definition or setting the limits on individual objects.

Example:  class Foo has instance methods calc1, cal2, etc.  Depending
on the state of the foo object and the parameters passed into the
methods, these methods might run in a fraction of the second or they
might take minutes.

class Foo
  def calc1
    #complex work ...
  end

  def calc2(a, b)
    #more complex work ...
  end

  #declare maximum time limit like this...
  #TooMuchTimeException exception to be thrown if method takes too long
   time_limit :calc1=>5, :calc2=>20
end

Is there anything already written that does this type of thing?

Thanks.

--Brian Buckley