Issue #22056 has been updated by himura467 (Akito Shitara). Thank you @byroot, for pointing out the concern. We are designing this new "external" string to be mutable. Regarding the complexity concern, the mechanism for handling cases where the zero-copy returned string is modified can be implemented without requiring new code paths by leveraging the existing `STR_NOFREE` mechanism. Therefore, I do not expect this to significantly increase the complexity of `string.c`. ---------------------------------------- Feature #22056: Add zero-copy String constructor backed by an arbitrary Ruby object https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/22056#change-117219 * Author: himura467 (Akito Shitara) * Status: Open ---------------------------------------- Ruby has rich built-in functionality for working with byte sequences through `String`. Objects that manage their own byte buffers naturally want to expose their data through this interface. The straightforward approach is `rb_str_new()`, which copies the bytes: ``` c VALUE str = rb_str_new(str, len); ``` For large or frequently accessed buffers this copy is wasteful in both time and memory. One approach is to create a String that directly references the existing memory, with the GC keeping the owner alive for as long as the String is reachable. This avoids both the copy and the need for manual lifetime management. ### Existing APIs and their limitations | API | Memory behavior | | ---- | ---- | | `rb_str_new` / `rb_str_new_cstr` | Copies bytes; String owns the allocation | | `rb_str_new_shared` / `rb_str_new_frozen` | References another String's buffer; parent must be a String | | `rb_str_new_static` | References static (compile-time) storage; no lifetime management | `rb_str_new_static` avoids copying but is only safe for storage that lives forever. When memory is owned by a Ruby object, it is freed when that object is collected, and `rb_str_new_static` offers no way to express that dependency. The common workaround is to pin the owner via an instance variable: ``` c VALUE str = rb_str_new_static(str, len); rb_ivar_set(str, id_owner, owner); ``` This relies on undocumented GC behavior, incurs ivar table allocation overhead, and leaves lifetime management entirely to the caller. ### Proposal Add zero-copy String constructors that accept an explicit parent object. The proposed names are tentative and open for discussion (see below): ``` c VALUE rb_str_new_external(const char *ptr, long len, VALUE parent); VALUE rb_usascii_str_new_external(const char *ptr, long len, VALUE parent); VALUE rb_utf8_str_new_external(const char *ptr, long len, VALUE parent); VALUE rb_enc_str_new_external(const char *ptr, long len, rb_encoding *enc, VALUE parent); ``` `parent` can be any live Ruby object. The GC guarantees it is not collected before the returned String is. `ptr` must point into memory whose lifetime is tied to `parent`; no copy is made. ### Use cases *IO::Buffer#get_string* `IO::Buffer.for(string)` wraps a String's bytes in a READONLY EXTERNAL buffer. `IO::Buffer#get_string` now copies those bytes into a new String. With this API, the returned String can reference the source String directly: ``` c return rb_enc_str_new_external((const char *)base + offset, length, encoding, buffer->source); ``` The returned String holds a direct GC reference to the source String, so it remains valid even after the buffer is freed. *GLib::Bytes#to_s (ruby-gnome)* `GLib::Bytes` is an immutable, reference-counted byte buffer from GLib. The current [implementation](https://github.com/ruby-gnome/ruby-gnome/blob/1dad74d1a86f97e95c9d89eec33fbe...) uses the ivar workaround: ``` c VALUE str = rb_str_new_static(data, size); rb_iv_set(str, "@bytes", self); ``` With the proposed API this becomes: ``` c return rb_str_new_external(data, size, self); ``` ### Open questions *Naming* The name `rb_str_new_external` is one option. Other candidates: * `rb_str_new_owned_by` / `rb_enc_str_new_owned_by` * `rb_str_new_pinned` / `rb_enc_str_new_pinned` * `rb_str_new_with_parent` / `rb_enc_str_new_with_parent` *Memory retention* When a String referencing a small slice of a large buffer remains reachable, the entire backing object is kept alive. This is the same concern that led Java to remove the shared-backing optimization from `String.substring()` in Java 7. The risk was also raised in the context of Ruby's own lazy substring proposal (#19315, https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/19315#note-7):
I heard that Java stopped the shared substring technique 10 years ago (https://www.infoq.com/news/2013/12/Oracle-Tunes-Java-String/) because of the potential for memory leaks
I don't disagree this proposal, but it would be nice if we could evaluate the effectiveness of this optimization.
Whether the same concern applies to this proposal, and whether the API should offer a way to force an independent copy, is worth discussing. ### Proof of concept A prototype implementation is at: https://github.com/ruby/ruby/pull/16834 The implementation introduces a new flag on non-embedded strings and stores the parent reference in `RString.as.heap.aux.parent`. The GC mark phase pins embedded parent strings to prevent compaction from invalidating the raw pointer stored in the zero-copy child. -- https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/