From: Adam Bender <abender@...>
Date: 2008-03-25T12:32:38+09:00
Subject: thread.rb

I want to modify the Queue class in thread.rb, so I first searched for
the file.  I found it in /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/thread.rb, both on a Mac
and a Linux machine.  On the Mac, the file was as expected, but on the
Linux machine, it contained only this:
-----------------------
unless defined? Thread
  fail "Thread not available for this ruby interpreter"
end

require 'thread.so'
-----------------------
Does this mean the Ruby code for Queue is compiled into a shared
library?  Is it possible to edit the code?  (I know I can modify the
class from outside the file, and that is probably what I will end up
doing, but I'm rather surprised by the above file contents and would
like to know more about it).

Thanks,

Adam

P.S. On a related note, I want to add a method to the Queue class that
is similar to pop, but will take a timeout value and return nil if it
no item is push'ed before timeout seconds have elapsed.    Can anyone
suggest something better than the following:

class Queue
  def pop_with_timeout(timeout)
    elapsed = 0.0
    while (Thread.critical = true; @que.empty?)
      @waiting.push Thread.current
      Thread.critical = false
      elapsed += sleep(timeout - elapsed)
      puts elapsed
      return nil if elapsed >= timeout
    end
    @que.shift
  ensure
    Thread.critical = false
  end
end

That was the first thing I came up with, and I'm (again) surprised
that it works - why does sleep ever return less than 1?  What
interrupts it?