Issue #21151 has been updated by headius (Charles Nutter).
for an IO to be read it has to be writable
In order to read data out of an IO, sure. But the methods I mentioned do not require write access to the IO; they just return non-writable state.
I would like to know why you want to freeze IO and StringIO
The non-writeable state could be passed on to another library for querying without risking that they would further modify that state. For example, passing a frozen `StringIO` to a library that needs to know `lineno` or `pos`. Basically, the use case is that if I'm done with a `StringIO` or `IO` and want to prevent it from being modified further while sharing its non-writable state with another library. There's also no logical reason why reading non-writable state from a `StringIO` or `IO` should require that it be mutable. ---------------------------------------- Bug #21151: IO and StringIO raise FrozenError even for read-only methods https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/21151#change-114253 * Author: headius (Charles Nutter) * Status: Feedback * Backport: 3.1: UNKNOWN, 3.2: UNKNOWN, 3.3: UNKNOWN, 3.4: UNKNOWN ---------------------------------------- Problem -------- While fixing a small [regression](https://github.com/ruby/stringio/issues/119) from my recent StringIO [fixes](https://github.com/ruby/stringio/issues/116) I discovered that a large number of read-only methods will fail if the StringIO is frozen. A few examples: ``` $ ruby -rstringio -e 's = StringIO.new; p s.lineno; s.freeze; p s.lineno' 0 -e:1:in 'StringIO#lineno': can't modify frozen StringIO: #<StringIO:0x0000000103711ea8> (FrozenError) from -e:1:in '<main>' $ ruby -rstringio -e 's = StringIO.new; p s.closed?; s.freeze; p s.closed?' false -e:1:in 'StringIO#closed?': can't modify frozen StringIO: #<StringIO:0x00000001008c1e68> (FrozenError) from -e:1:in '<main>' $ ruby -rstringio -e 's = StringIO.new; p s.eof?; s.freeze; p s.eof?' true -e:1:in 'StringIO#eof?': can't modify frozen StringIO: #<StringIO:0x000000011c171e80> (FrozenError) from -e:1:in '<main>' $ ruby -rstringio -e 's = StringIO.new; p s.pos; s.freeze; p s.pos' 0 -e:1:in 'StringIO#pos': can't modify frozen StringIO: #<StringIO:0x0000000105551df0> (FrozenError) from -e:1:in '<main>' ``` @kou pointed out that IO also raises for at least `lineno` and suggested I re-open the issue here. I still believe these read-only operations should be allowed on frozen IO or StringIO. Cause in StringIO ----------------- This is because the `StringIO` macro calls `get_strio` which calls `rb_io_taint_check` which calls `rb_check_frozen`. The `StringIO` macro is used in almost every method to access the rb_stringio_t data structure. A list of methods I believe should be operable when the StringIO is frozen (in stringio.c definition order): * string (returns underlying String but does not mutate anything) * lineno * pos * closed?/closed_read?/closed_write? * eof/eof? * sync * pid (a dummy method but it writes nothing) * fileno (dummy) * pread (by definition does not modify state) * isatty/tty? * size/length * external_encoding * internal_encoding In addition, `initialize_copy` probably should not require the original StringIO to be writable: ``` $ ruby -rstringio -e 's = StringIO.new("foo"); s.freeze; p s.dup' -e:1:in 'StringIO#initialize_copy': can't modify frozen StringIO: #<StringIO:0x0000000102eb1df8> (FrozenError) from -e:1:in 'Kernel#initialize_dup' from -e:1:in 'Kernel#dup' from -e:1:in '<main>' ``` The data from the original StringIO is unmodified by `initialize_copy`, other than the reference-counting `ptr->count` (which should not be subject to frozen checks). Cause in IO ----------- The `GetOpenFile` macro calls `RB_IO_POINTER` macro which calls `rb_io_taint_check` which calls `rb_check_frozen`. Methods in IO that should work on a frozen IO include those from the StringIO list above that currently raise. For example `lineno` uses `GetOpenFile` and raises, but `fileno` does not and does not raise. There's clearly some inconsistency here we can clean up. Origin ------ I believe most of the StringIO cases are caused by this change from 2011 that added frozen checks to StringIO (the class and the macro): https://github.com/ruby/ruby/commit/d8d9bac5c8b071135e50ad3f21c8a9b6a9c06e54 In IO, this behavior dates way back to 2000 by @matz himself: https://github.com/ruby/ruby/commit/087c83d7ceed6893afff93066937fb570ae4a115 Notes ----- Originally filed as https://github.com/ruby/stringio/issues/120. I have started to fix the StringIO cases for JRuby in https://github.com/ruby/stringio/pull/122. I could probably fix the C version of StringIO as well, but I'm a little more unsure about how to fix IO. -- https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/