From: Philip Mak <pmak@...>
Date: 2003-08-25T10:54:46+09:00
Subject: How did this variable become negative?

My program crashed with this error:

	./throttle.rb:42:in `/': divided by 0 (ZeroDivisionError)

The offending line is this:

	limit = $THROTTLE / (@@num_sending + 1)

So that means @@num_sending must have become -1 somehow, in order for
a ZeroDivisionError to occur.

But @@num_sending is initialized to 0, and this is the only place in
the code where it is modified:

        begin
                @@num_sending += 1
                yield limit
        ensure
                @@num_sending -= 1
        end

So how could @@num_sending have become -1? It can only be decremented
after being incremented. Could the fact that this class is used by
multiple threads simultaneously have something to do with it? But I
still don't see how it could happen...

ruby 1.6.8 (2002-12-24) [i686-linux]