Issue #21953 has been updated by Eregon (Benoit Daloze). @tikkss I meant to come back to this but forgot. Could you compare with `fork`, since that's how many Ruby apps run today? Also what if there is more allocations (not just classes) in each box/process? I would expect the gain of Box to be minimal over non-forked processes then (and clearly lose to `fork`), because Box only shares the "initial RSS" of the Ruby process, i.e. only core classes/modules and initial heap before loading any file. Everything else is duplicated per Box. In any realistic application there would be many files loaded, and that work would be repeated per Box and also multiple the memory of it by the number of Boxes. Regarding unsharable objects within a Ractor-local Ruby Box, I suppose #22226 is one step in that direction. ---------------------------------------- Feature #21953: Allow accessing unshareable objects within a Ractor-local Ruby Box https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/21953#change-118465 * Author: tikkss (Tsutomu Katsube) * Status: Assigned * Assignee: tagomoris (Satoshi Tagomori) ---------------------------------------- ### Status Currently, non-main ractors prohibit access to the following objects to prevent data races: * Global variables * Class variables * Unshareable class instance variables * Unshareable constants ### Proposal I would like to propose that allow reading/writing unshareable objects inside a Ruby Box created in a non-main ractor: ```ruby # lib/x.rb class X # can write unshareable objects XXX = "1" @@cvar = "1" @ivar = "1" class << self def cvar; @@cvar; end def ivar; @ivar; end end end # can read unshareable objects $LOAD_PATH # => returns $LOAD_PATH includes lib directory X.cvar # => "1" X.ivar # => "1" X::XXX # => "1" # main.rb Ractor.new do local_box = Ruby::Box.new local_box.eval <<~RUBY base_dir = File.expand_path(File.dirname(__FILE__)) lib_dir = File.join(base_dir, "lib") # can write unshareable objects $LOAD_PATH.unshift(lib_dir) RUBY local_box.require("x") x = local_box::X.new end.join ``` Ruby Box can isolate global/class variables, class/module definitions from other boxes. A Ruby Box created inside a non-main ractor cannot be accessed from other ractor. If that is the case, wouldn’t it be fine to access unshareable objects inside that box? So I would like to propose that allow reading/writing unshareable objects inside a Ruby Box created in a non-main ractor. ### Background We are working on implementing a Ractor based parallel test runner for the test-unit gem. Ractor is a great for parallel processing. However, many existing libraries still rely on class variables or class instance variables for configuration. Ideally, we should reduce the use of class variables or class instance variables. Currently, we tried fixing several non-shareable objects, but we could not resolve all of them yet. We will continue working on this issue, but we are also exploring other approaches. This is the idea begind this proposal. I think the work needed to make objects shareable when running exisiting libraries with Ractor can be reduced. ### FAQ Q: Can we create a Ruby Box inside a non-main ractor? A: Yes: ```ruby Ractor.new {Ruby::Box.new}.join ``` Q: Is a Ruby Box created in a non-main ractor truly inaccessible from other ractor? A: No. I'm not sure if it's intentional, but a Ruby Box is a shareable object. Also, it can be accessed from the main Ractor by using `Ractor#value`: ```ruby Ractor.shareable?(Ruby::Box.new) # => true ``` ```ruby Ractor.new {Ruby::Box.new}.value # => #<Ruby::Box:3,user,optional> ``` To implement this proposal, Ruby Box may need to be an unshareable object, and passing it with `Ractor#value` may need to be disallowed. ---Files-------------------------------- 1000.html (1.01 KB) 10000.html (1.02 KB) 100000.html (1.02 KB) -- https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/