[ruby-core:119810] [Ruby master Bug#20869] IO buffer handling is inconsistent when seeking

7 Nov 2024

      Issue #20869 has been updated by javanthropus (Jeremy Bopp).

The documentation that was added says that `IO#tell` and `IO#pos` would clear the buffers, but they appear to have a special code path now to avoid it.  `IO#seek(0, :CUR)` doesn't share this behavior, and that's a curious inconsistency.

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Bug #20869: IO buffer handling is inconsistent when seeking
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/20869#change-110498

* Author: javanthropus (Jeremy Bopp)
* Status: Closed
* ruby -v: ruby 3.3.4 (2024-07-09 revision be1089c8ec) [x86_64-linux]
* Backport: 3.1: UNKNOWN, 3.2: UNKNOWN, 3.3: UNKNOWN
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When performing any of the seek based operations on IO (IO#seek, IO#pos=, or IO#rewind), the read buffer is inconsistently cleared:

```ruby
require 'tempfile'

Tempfile.open do |f|
  f.write('0123456789')
  f.rewind

  # Calling #ungetbyte as the first read buffer
  # operation uses a buffer that is preserved during
  # seek operations
  f.ungetbyte(97)
  # Byte buffer will not be cleared
  f.seek(2, :SET)

  f.getbyte       # => 97
end

Tempfile.open do |f|
  f.write('0123456789')
  f.rewind

  # Calling #getbyte before #ungetbyte uses a
  # buffer that is not preserved when seeking
  f.getbyte
  f.ungetbyte(97)
  # Byte buffer will be cleared
  f.seek(2, :SET)

  f.getbyte       # => 50
end
```

Similar behavior happens when reading characters:
```ruby
require 'tempfile'

Tempfile.open do |f|
  f.write('0123456789')
  f.rewind

  # Calling #ungetc as the first read buffer
  # operation uses a buffer that is preserved during
  # seek operations
  f.ungetc('a')
  # Character buffer will not be cleared
  f.seek(2, :SET)

  f.getc       # => 'a'
end

Tempfile.open do |f|
  f.write('0123456789')
  f.rewind

  # Calling #getc before #ungetc uses a
  # buffer that is not preserved when seeking
  f.getc
  f.ungetc('a')
  # Character buffer will be cleared
  f.seek(2, :SET)

  f.getc       # => '2'
end
```

When transcoding, however, the character buffer is never cleared when seeking:
```ruby
require 'tempfile'

Tempfile.open(encoding: 'utf-8:utf-16le') do |f|
  f.write('0123456789')
  f.rewind

  f.ungetc('a'.encode('utf-16le'))
  # Character buffer will not be cleared
  f.seek(2, :SET)

  f.getc       # => 'a'.encode('utf-16le')
end

Tempfile.open(encoding: 'utf-8:utf-16le') do |f|
  f.write('0123456789')
  f.rewind

  f.getc
  f.ungetc('a'.encode('utf-16le'))
  # Character buffer will not be cleared
  f.seek(2, :SET)

  f.getc       # => 'a'.encode('utf-16le')
end
```

I would expect the buffers to be cleared in all cases except possibly when the seek operation doesn't actually move the file pointer such as when calling IO#pos or IO#seek(0, :CUR).  The inconsistent behavior demonstrated here is a problem regardless though.

-- 
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