November 2025 - ruby-core - ml.ruby-lang.org

[ruby-core:111146] [Ruby master Bug#19172] `ruby_thread_has_gvl_p` is innacurate sometimes -- document or change?
by ivoanjo (Ivo Anjo) 15 May '26

15 May '26

Issue #19172 has been reported by ivoanjo (Ivo Anjo). ---------------------------------------- Bug #19172: `ruby_thread_has_gvl_p` is innacurate sometimes -- document or change? https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/19172 * Author: ivoanjo (Ivo Anjo) * Status: Open * Priority: Normal * ruby -v: (All Ruby versions) * Backport: 2.7: UNKNOWN, 3.0: UNKNOWN, 3.1: UNKNOWN ---------------------------------------- Howdy 👋! I work for Datadog [on the ddtrace gem](https://github.com/DataDog/dd-trace-rb) and I found a... sharp edge on the internal `ruby_thread_has_gvl_p` API. I am aware that `ruby_thread_has_gvl_p` is documented an experimental API that is exported as a symbol but not present on the VM include files. ### Background In the ddtrace profiling component, we setup a signal handler and then periodically send SIGPROF signals to try to interrupt the running Ruby thread (e.g. the thread that is holding the global VM lock or equivalent). In the signal handler, we need to perform some API calls which are not safe to do without the GVL. So we need to check if the signal handler got called in the thread that has the GVL. ### The issue ```ruby int ruby_thread_has_gvl_p(void) { rb_thread_t *th = ruby_thread_from_native(); if (th && th->blocking_region_buffer == 0) { return 1; } else { return 0; } } ``` In its current implementation, `ruby_thread_has_gvl_p` only checks if the thread has a `blocking_region_buffer` or not. Unfortunately, this means that when called from a thread that lost the GVL but not due to blocking (e.g. via `rb_thread_schedule()`), it can still claim that a thread is holding the GVL when that is not the case. I ran into this issue in https://github.com/DataDog/dd-trace-rb/pull/2415, and needed to find a workaround. ### Next steps Since this is an internal VM API, I'm not sure you'd want to change the current behavior, so I was thinking of perhaps two options: * Is it worth changing `ruby_thread_has_gvl_p` to be accurate in the case I've listed? * If not, would you accept a PR to document its current limitations, so that others don't run into the same issue I did? -- https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/

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[ruby-core:111678] [Ruby master Feature#19315] Lazy substrings in CRuby
by Eregon (Benoit Daloze) 13 May '26

13 May '26

Issue #19315 has been reported by Eregon (Benoit Daloze). ---------------------------------------- Feature #19315: Lazy substrings in CRuby https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/19315 * Author: Eregon (Benoit Daloze) * Status: Open * Priority: Normal ---------------------------------------- CRuby should implement lazy substrings, i.e., "abcdef"[1..3] must not copy bytes. Currently CRuby only reuse the char* if the substring is until the end of the buffer. But it should also work wherever the substring starts and ends. Yes, it means RSTRING_PTR() might need to allocate to \0-terminate, so be it, it's worth it. There is already code for this (`SHARABLE_MIDDLE_SUBSTRING`), but it's disabled by default and `RSTRING_PTR()` needs to be changed to deal with this. It seems a good idea to introduce a variant of `RSTRING_PTR` which doesn't guarantee \0-termination, so such callers can then use the existing bytes always without copy. There are countless workarounds for this missing optimization, all not worth and all less readable: * https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/19314 * https://github.com/ruby/net-protocol/pull/14 * Manual lazy substrings which track string + index + length * More but I don't remember all now, feel free to comment or link more urls/tickets. -- https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/

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[ruby-core:123484] [Ruby Bug#21640] Core Pathname is missing 3 methods / is partially-defined
by Eregon (Benoit Daloze) 13 May '26

13 May '26

Issue #21640 has been reported by Eregon (Benoit Daloze). ---------------------------------------- Bug #21640: Core Pathname is missing 3 methods / is partially-defined https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/21640 * Author: Eregon (Benoit Daloze) * Status: Open * ruby -v: ruby 3.5.0dev (2025-10-09T08:06:20Z master a29c90c3b0) +PRISM [x86_64-linux] * Backport: 3.2: UNKNOWN, 3.3: UNKNOWN, 3.4: UNKNOWN ---------------------------------------- ``` $ ruby -e 'puts Pathname.instance_methods(false).sort; puts Pathname.singleton_methods.sort' > core_pathname_methods.txt $ ruby -rpathname -e 'puts Pathname.instance_methods(false).sort; puts Pathname.singleton_methods.sort' > require_pathname_methods.txt $ diff core_pathname_methods.txt require_pathname_methods.txt 36a37 > find 72a74 > rmtree 98a101 > mktmpdir ``` So `#find`, `#rmtree` and `.mktmpdir` are missing from core Pathname. And indeed, they give NoMethodError, e.g. ``` $ ruby -ve 'Pathname.new("doesnotexist").rmtree' ruby 3.5.0dev (2025-10-09T08:06:20Z master a29c90c3b0) +PRISM [x86_64-linux] -e:1:in '<main>': undefined method 'rmtree' for an instance of Pathname (NoMethodError) ``` I think this is confusing and unexpected for most users. Either Pathname should be fully defined or not at all, having a partially-defined Pathname seems particularly confusing (a bit like an autoload that failed in the middle or so). AFAIK the only core class which used to have this was Fiber with `alive?` and `transfer`, that certainly caused its share of confusion, and Fiber has since been fixed, now even without `require "fiber"` Fiber has all methods. Furthermore these 3 methods are not documented as needing `require 'pathname'` in their documentation: https://github.com/ruby/ruby/blob/master/lib/pathname.rb The reason these 3 methods are not in core pathname seems to be (from [this comment](https://github.com/ruby/pathname/issues/64#issuecomment-3388907046)) > That's consensus with akr and me. We should avoid loading other libraries by simply calling methods from the embedded core classes. I understand that concern and I share it, but I think the situation of having a partially-defined Pathname in core is quite problematic. I think there are 2 solutions: * Define all Pathname methods in core. The `require` are done lazily inside the methods so AFAIK there is no technical issue blocking that, but it's not ideal design-wise that a core class can load default gems (i.e. give up that concern for this particular case). * Do not define Pathname in core and let it be a default gem as it was in Ruby 3.4. I discuss the second in more details, because I found more problems than I would have imagined with core Pathname: ## Should Pathname be in core? #17473 proposed to make Pathname core. That sounded great to me at first thought, but as I realize the practical problems with it I'm thinking it's actually better to keep Pathname non-core and as a default gems. Here are concerns with having Pathname in core: 1. Pathname inherently depends on other default gems/stdlib like `find`, `fileutils` and `tmpdir`. This is important to make Pathname useful. The docs even phrase it like this: `ri Pathname` > ... > All functionality from File, FileTest, and some from Dir and > FileUtils is included, in an unsurprising way. It is essentially a > facade for all of these, and more. 2. core Pathname is missing 3 methods compared to gem Pathname (shown above) 3. the pathname gem is likely to gain extra features, methods and bug fixes. For example I see [4 PRs](https://github.com/ruby/pathname/pulls) adding new methods. It means core Pathname will always be outdated and potentially missing some new methods. 4. One can still use the pathname gem even if it's in core, but surprisingly just `require 'pathname'` is not enough: ``` $ gem install pathname Building native extensions. This could take a while... Successfully installed pathname-0.4.0 1 gem installed $ ruby -e 'require "pathname"; puts $".grep(/pathname/)' pathname.so /home/eregon/prefix/ruby-master/lib/ruby/3.5.0+4/pathname.rb ^ wrong that's the stdlib pathname $ ruby -e 'gem "pathname"; require "pathname"; puts $".grep(/pathname/)' # some warnings, reported in https://github.com/ruby/pathname/issues/66 pathname.so /home/eregon/prefix/ruby-master/lib/ruby/gems/3.5.0+4/gems/pathname-0.4.0/lib/pathname.rb ^ correct ``` This is another source of confusion caused by core pathname. It even happens with Bundler! ``` $ cat Gemfile source "https://rubygems.org" gem "pathname" $ bundle install $ ruby -e 'require "bundler/setup"; require "pathname"; puts $".grep(/pathname/); puts; puts $:' pathname.so /home/eregon/prefix/ruby-master/lib/ruby/3.5.0+4/pathname.rb /home/eregon/tmp/bundler-pathname/vendor/bundle/ruby/3.5.0+4/gems/pathname-0.4.0/lib /home/eregon/tmp/bundler-pathname/vendor/bundle/ruby/3.5.0+4/extensions/x86_64-linux/3.5.0+4-static/pathname-0.4.0 /home/eregon/prefix/ruby-master/lib/ruby/gems/3.5.0+4/gems/bundler-2.8.0.dev/lib /home/eregon/prefix/ruby-master/lib/ruby/site_ruby/3.5.0+4 /home/eregon/prefix/ruby-master/lib/ruby/site_ruby/3.5.0+4/x86_64-linux /home/eregon/prefix/ruby-master/lib/ruby/site_ruby /home/eregon/prefix/ruby-master/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/3.5.0+4 /home/eregon/prefix/ruby-master/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/3.5.0+4/x86_64-linux /home/eregon/prefix/ruby-master/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby /home/eregon/prefix/ruby-master/lib/ruby/3.5.0+4 /home/eregon/prefix/ruby-master/lib/ruby/3.5.0+4/x86_64-linux $ bundle exec ruby -e 'require "pathname"; puts $".grep(/pathname/); puts; puts $:' same as above ``` I'm not sure why, but that seems a serious bug that the `pathname` gem apparently can't be used at all with Bundler. 4. due to this difference in terms of methods for core & gem pathname it seems complicated to keep core Pathname and gem Pathname in sync, since e.g. everything is naturally in one `.rb` file in the gem, but in two `.rb` files in core 5. the pathname gem has to `remove_const :Pathname` to avoid conflicts and warnings in https://github.com/ruby/pathname/blob/4689b0b78d081ae855f325e086d95803fa5bd…. This is bad for Ruby JITs, especially if core Pathname methods might have been used, as it will invalidate JITs compilations, invalidate some inline caches (also bad for the interpreter), caused the JIT to do more compilations which means slower warmup, makes it much harder to persist JITed code across process executions, etc. Based on all of these I think it would actually be better to not have Pathname in core, and let it be a default gem. Having to `require "pathname"` as one always needed to do so far seems far better than a partially-defined core Pathname with rough edge cases (those concerns). -- https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/

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[ruby-core:117434] [Ruby master Bug#20409] Missing reporting some invalid breaks
by kddnewton (Kevin Newton) 13 May '26

13 May '26

Issue #20409 has been reported by kddnewton (Kevin Newton). ---------------------------------------- Bug #20409: Missing reporting some invalid breaks https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/20409 * Author: kddnewton (Kevin Newton) * Status: Open * Backport: 3.0: UNKNOWN, 3.1: UNKNOWN, 3.2: UNKNOWN, 3.3: UNKNOWN ---------------------------------------- -- https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/

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[ruby-core:115241] [Ruby master Bug#19986] Win32: `HOME` is set to just `HOMEDRIVE` if `HOMEPATH` is unset
by nobu (Nobuyoshi Nakada) 11 May '26

11 May '26

Issue #19986 has been reported by nobu (Nobuyoshi Nakada). ---------------------------------------- Bug #19986: Win32: `HOME` is set to just `HOMEDRIVE` if `HOMEPATH` is unset https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/19986 * Author: nobu (Nobuyoshi Nakada) * Status: Open * Priority: Normal * Backport: 3.0: REQUIRED, 3.1: REQUIRED, 3.2: REQUIRED ---------------------------------------- ``` $ env -u HOME -u USERPROFILE -u HOMEPATH HOMEDRIVE=no/such/home ./miniruby.exe -e 'p ENV["HOME"], Dir.home' "no/such/home" "no/such/home" ``` `HOMEDRIVE` should be ignored without `HOMEPATH`, and `HOME` should fallback to `CSIDL_PROFILE`. -- https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/

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[ruby-core:118940] [Ruby master Bug#20696] `IO.read` ignores `err:` option
by nobu (Nobuyoshi Nakada) 11 May '26

11 May '26

Issue #20696 has been reported by nobu (Nobuyoshi Nakada). ---------------------------------------- Bug #20696: `IO.read` ignores `err:` option https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/20696 * Author: nobu (Nobuyoshi Nakada) * Status: Open * Backport: 3.1: UNKNOWN, 3.2: UNKNOWN, 3.3: UNKNOWN ---------------------------------------- I expected the following code captures the error message, but `err:` option is ignored. ```shell-session $ ruby -e 'p IO.read("|ruby -e raise", err: %i[child out])' -e:1:in '<main>': unhandled exception "" ``` -- https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/

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[ruby-core:123795] [Ruby Bug#21685] Unnecessary context-switching, especially bad on multi-core machines.
by jpl-coconut (Jacob Lacouture) 16 Apr '26

16 Apr '26

Issue #21685 has been reported by jpl-coconut (Jacob Lacouture). ---------------------------------------- Bug #21685: Unnecessary context-switching, especially bad on multi-core machines. https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/21685 * Author: jpl-coconut (Jacob Lacouture) * Status: Open * ruby -v: ruby 3.4.7 (2025-10-08 revision 7a5688e2a2) +PRISM [aarch64-linux] * Backport: 3.2: UNKNOWN, 3.3: UNKNOWN, 3.4: UNKNOWN ---------------------------------------- While debugging a performance issue in a large rails application, I wrote a minimal microbenchmark that reproduces the issue. [[here]](https://gist.github.com/jpl-coconut/cb3679ce885eb578e1071c4b3a525d5c) I was surprised to see that the benchmark takes ~3.6sec on a single-core machine, and ~36sec **(10x slower) on a machine with 2 or more cores** . Initially I thought this was a bug in the implementation of Thread::Queue, but soon realized it relates to how the ruby reschedules threads around system calls. I prepared a fix in [[this branch]](https://github.com/jpl-coconut/ruby/tree/deferred_thread_wait) which is based off ruby 3.4.7. I can apply the fix to a different branch or to master if that's helpful. The fix simply defers suspending the thread until the syscall has been running for some short interval. I chose 100usec initially, but this could easily be made configurable. I pasted raw benchmark results below from a single run (though I did many runs and the results are stable). My CPU is an Apple M4. After the fix: - Single-core performance improves by 55%, from 3.6sec to 2sec. - Adding cores causes performance to be flat (at 2sec), rather than getting 10x slower. - Multi-core context-switch count reduces by 99.995%, from 1.4 million to ~80 - system_time/user_time ratio drops from (1.2 - 1.6) to 0.65 Here are the benchmark results before my change: ``` # time taskset --cpu-list 1 ./ruby qtest_simple.rb voluntary_ctxt_switches: 1140773 nonvoluntary_ctxt_switches: 9487 real 0m3.619s user 0m1.653s sys 0m1.950s # time taskset --cpu-list 1,2 ./ruby qtest_simple.rb voluntary_ctxt_switches: 1400110 nonvoluntary_ctxt_switches: 3 real 0m36.223s user 0m9.380s sys 0m14.927s ``` And after: ``` # time taskset --cpu-list 1 ./ruby qtest_simple.rb voluntary_ctxt_switches: 88 nonvoluntary_ctxt_switches: 899 real 0m2.031s user 0m1.209s sys 0m0.743s # time taskset --cpu-list 1,2 ./ruby qtest_simple.rb voluntary_ctxt_switches: 75 nonvoluntary_ctxt_switches: 8 real 0m2.062s user 0m1.279s sys 0m0.783s ``` I was concerned these results might still be reflective of a bug in Thread::Queue, so I also came up with a repro that doesn't rely on it. That one is [[here]](https://gist.github.com/jpl-coconut/aa14e59354abf98f808daaf39baa9a72). Results summary: - Single-core performance improves (this time by only 30%) - Multi-core penalty drops from 4x to 0. - No change to context-switching rates. - system_time/user_time ratio drops from (0.5-1) to 0.15 Before fix: ``` # time taskset --cpu-list 1 ./ruby mbenchmark.rb voluntary_ctxt_switches: 60 real 0m0.336s user 0m0.211s sys 0m0.118s # time taskset --cpu-list 1,2 ./ruby mbenchmark.rb voluntary_ctxt_switches: 60 real 0m1.424s user 0m0.468s sys 0m0.496s ``` After fix: ``` # time taskset --cpu-list 1 ./ruby mbenchmark.rb voluntary_ctxt_switches: 59 real 0m0.241s user 0m0.202s sys 0m0.032s # time taskset --cpu-list 1,2 ./ruby mbenchmark.rb voluntary_ctxt_switches: 60 real 0m0.238s user 0m0.195s sys 0m0.035s ``` -- https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/

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[ruby-core:116382] [Ruby master Feature#20205] Enable `frozen_string_literal` by default
by byroot (Jean Boussier) 14 Apr '26

14 Apr '26

Issue #20205 has been reported by byroot (Jean Boussier). ---------------------------------------- Feature #20205: Enable `frozen_string_literal` by default https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/20205 * Author: byroot (Jean Boussier) * Status: Open * Priority: Normal ---------------------------------------- ### Context The `frozen_string_literal: true` pragma was introduced in Ruby 2.3, and as far as I'm aware the plan was initially to make it the default for Ruby 3.0, but this plan was abandoned because it would be too much of a breaking change without any real further notice. According to Matz, he still wishes to enable `frozen_string_literal` by default in the future, but a reasonable migration plan is required. The main issue is backward compatibility, flipping the switch immediately would break a lot of code, so there must be some deprecation period. The usual the path forward for this kind of change is to emit deprecation warnings one of multiple versions in advance. One example of that was the Ruby 2.7 keyword argument deprecation. It was quite verbose, and some users were initially annoyed, but I think the community pulled through it and I don't seem to hear much about it anymore. So for frozen string literals, the first step would be to start warning when a string that would be frozen in the future is mutated. ### Deprecation Warning Implementation I implemented a quick proof of concept with @etienne in https://github.com/Shopify/ruby/pull/549 In short: - Files with `# frozen_string_literal: true` or `# frozen_string_literal: false` don't change in behavior at all. - Files with no `# frozen_string_literal` comment are compiled to use `putchilledstring` opcode instead of regular `putstring`. - This opcode mark the string with a user flag, when these strings are mutated, a warning is issued. Currently the proof of concept issue the warning at the mutation location, which in some case can make locating where the string was allocated a bit hard. But it is possible to improve it so the message also include the location at which the literal string was allocated, and learning from the keyword argument warning experience, we can record which warnings were already issued to avoid spamming users with duplicated warnings. As currently implemented, there is almost no overhead. If we modify the implementation to record the literal location, we'd incur a small memory overhead for each literal string in a file without an explicit `frozen_string_literal` pragma. But I believe we could do it in a way that has no overhead if `Warning[:deprecated] = false`. ### Timeline The migration would happen in 3 steps, each step can potentially last multiple releases. e.g. `R0` could be `3.4`, `R1` be `3.7` and `R2` be `4.0`. I don't have a strong opinion on the pace. - Release `R0`: introduce the deprecation warning (only if deprecation warnings enabled). - Release `R1`: make the deprecation warning show up regardless of verbosity level. - Release `R2`: make string literals frozen by default. ### Impact Given that `rubocop` is quite popular in the community and it has enforced the usage of `# frozen_string_literal: true` for years now, I suspect a large part of the actively maintained codebases in the wild wouldn't see any warnings. And with recent versions of `minitest` enabling deprecation warnings by default (and [potentially RSpec too](https://github.com/rspec/rspec-core/issues/2867)) the few that didn't migrate will likely be made compatible quickly. The real problem of course are the less actively developed libraries and applications. For such cases, any codebase can remain compatible by setting `RUBYOPT="--disable=frozen_string_literal"`, and so even after `R2` release. The flag would never be removed any legacy codebase can continue upgrading Ruby without changing a single line of cod by just flipping this flag. ### Workflow for library maintainers As a library maintainer, fixing the deprecation warnings can be as simple as prepending `# frozen_string_literal: false` at the top of all their source files, and this will keep working forever. Alternatively they can of course make their code compatible with frozen string literals. Code that is frozen string literal compatible doesn't need to explicitly declare it. Only code that need it turned of need to do so. ### Workflow for application owners For application owners, the workflow is the same than for libraries. However if they depend on a gem that hasn't updated, or that they can't upgrade it, they can run their application with `RUBYOPT="--disable=frozen_string_literal"` and it will keep working forever. Any user running into an incompatibility issue can set `RUBYOPT="--disable=frozen_string_literal"` forever, even in `4.x`, the only thing changing is the default value. And any application for which all dependencies have been made fully frozen string literal compatible can set `RUBYOPT="--enable=frozen_string_literal"` and start immediately removing magic comment from their codebase. -- https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/

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[ruby-core:123836] [Ruby Feature#21695] Optimizing Ruby performance with Ruby itself instead of Rust
by fredlinhares (Frederico Linhares) 10 Apr '26

10 Apr '26

Issue #21695 has been reported by fredlinhares (Frederico Linhares). ---------------------------------------- Feature #21695: Optimizing Ruby performance with Ruby itself instead of Rust https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/21695 * Author: fredlinhares (Frederico Linhares) * Status: Open ---------------------------------------- I am using ERB on top of C for a game I am making now. We can use the tool to improve the productivity, memory safety, and runtime speed for Ruby. It can also replace a Rust JIT compiler for better results. The only problem is that it requires some level of manual memory management, while Rust does it all for you. If I demonstrate that it is better than Rust in practice, would you be willing to incorporate it into the Ruby language? I want to know because making it more generic will require more effort from me; if you are not interested, I won’t make the tool public. -- https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/

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[ruby-core:123883] [Ruby Feature#21704] Expose rb_process_status_new to C extensions
by noteflakes (Sharon Rosner) 05 Apr '26

05 Apr '26

Issue #21704 has been reported by noteflakes (Sharon Rosner). ---------------------------------------- Feature #21704: Expose rb_process_status_new to C extensions https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/21704 * Author: noteflakes (Sharon Rosner) * Status: Open ---------------------------------------- A fiber scheduler implementation with a hook for `#process_wait` needs to return a `Process::Status` object, but currently it is not possible for a C extension to directly create an instance of `Process::Status`. The technique currently used in various fiber scheduler implementations is to use `pidfd_open`, poll for fd readiness, then call `Process::Status.wait`, which creates the instance. On recent Linux kernels (6.7 or newer), `io_uring_prep_waitid` can be used to directly wait for process termination, which provides us with the pid and status of the terminated child process, but there's no way to directly create an instance of `Process::Status`, required for implementing the `#process_wait` hook. Exposing the internal `rb_process_status_new` function would allow such an implementation. Using `io_uring_prep_waitid` would also lead to better compatibility of fiber schedulers with calls to `Process.wait(0)` or `Process.wait(-1)`, as those cannot be done using `pidfd_open`. The associated PR is here: https://github.com/ruby/ruby/pull/15213 An working fiber scheduler implementation of `process_wait` using `io_uring_prep_waitid` has been submitted here: https://github.com/socketry/io-event/pull/154 -- https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/

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