From: Jamis Buck <jgb3@...>
Date: 2004-02-10T09:32:11+09:00
Subject: Re: timeout w/o timeout.rb

Ara.T.Howard wrote:

>i'm writing some unit tests which do alot of io/select/etc - bad things to mix
>with a thread based 'timeout' method...  i've been using this instead:
>
>  # a timeout method which does not fail when io blocks 
>  trap 'SIGALRM', 'IGNORE'
>  class TimeoutError < StandardError; end
>  def timeout n
>    begin
>      trap('SIGALRM'){throw :timeout, TimeoutError.new}
>      cid = nil 
>      unless((cid = fork))
>        sleep n
>        Process.kill 'SIGALRM', Process.ppid 
>      else
>        thrown = 
>          catch(:timeout) do 
>            ret = yield
>            Process.kill 'SIGKILL', cid 
>            ret
>          end
>        raise thrown if TimeoutError === thrown
>      end
>    ensure
>      trap 'SIGALRM', 'IGNORE'
>    end
>  end
>
>any massive problems with this (this impl is a mega hack i realize)?
>
>does it seem like some permutation of this might be useful?  something like
>Process#timeout perhaps??
>
>-a
>  
>

Doesn't Ruby use SIGALRM internally?  I could be wrong, but if it does, 
you may be asking for trouble by using it in your script.

- Jamis

-- 
Jamis Buck
jgb3@email.byu.edu
http://www.jamisbuck.org/blog/jamis.cgi

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