class Thread

Threads are the Ruby implementation for a concurrent programming model.

Programs that require multiple threads of execution are a perfect candidate for Ruby’s Thread class.

For example, we can create a new thread separate from the main thread’s execution using ::new.

thr = Thread.new { puts "What's the big deal" }

Then we are able to pause the execution of the main thread and allow our new thread to finish, using join:

thr.join #=> "What's the big deal"

If we don’t call thr.join before the main thread terminates, then all other threads including thr will be killed.

Alternatively, you can use an array for handling multiple threads at once, like in the following example:

threads = []
threads << Thread.new { puts "What's the big deal" }
threads << Thread.new { 3.times { puts "Threads are fun!" } }

After creating a few threads we wait for them all to finish consecutively.

threads.each { |thr| thr.join }

To retrieve the last value of a thread, use value

thr = Thread.new { sleep 1; "Useful value" }
thr.value #=> "Useful value"

Thread initialization ↑

In order to create new threads, Ruby provides ::new, ::start, and ::fork. A block must be provided with each of these methods, otherwise a ThreadError will be raised.

When subclassing the Thread class, the initialize method of your subclass will be ignored by ::start and ::fork. Otherwise, be sure to call super in your initialize method.

Thread termination ↑

For terminating threads, Ruby provides a variety of ways to do this.

The class method ::kill, is meant to exit a given thread:

thr = Thread.new { sleep }
Thread.kill(thr) # sends exit() to thr

Alternatively, you can use the instance method exit, or any of its aliases kill or terminate.

thr.exit

Thread status ↑

Ruby provides a few instance methods for querying the state of a given thread. To get a string with the current thread’s state use status

thr = Thread.new { sleep }
thr.status # => "sleep"
thr.exit
thr.status # => false

You can also use alive? to tell if the thread is running or sleeping, and stop? if the thread is dead or sleeping.

Thread variables and scope ↑

Since threads are created with blocks, the same rules apply to other Ruby blocks for variable scope. Any local variables created within this block are accessible to only this thread.

Fiber-local vs. Thread-local ↑

Each fiber has its own bucket for Thread#[] storage. When you set a new fiber-local it is only accessible within this Fiber. To illustrate:

Thread.new {
  Thread.current[:foo] = "bar"
  Fiber.new {
    p Thread.current[:foo] # => nil
  }.resume
}.join

This example uses [] for getting and []= for setting fiber-locals, you can also use keys to list the fiber-locals for a given thread and key? to check if a fiber-local exists.

When it comes to thread-locals, they are accessible within the entire scope of the thread. Given the following example:

Thread.new{
  Thread.current.thread_variable_set(:foo, 1)
  p Thread.current.thread_variable_get(:foo) # => 1
  Fiber.new{
    Thread.current.thread_variable_set(:foo, 2)
    p Thread.current.thread_variable_get(:foo) # => 2
  }.resume
  p Thread.current.thread_variable_get(:foo)   # => 2
}.join

You can see that the thread-local :foo carried over into the fiber and was changed to 2 by the end of the thread.

This example makes use of thread_variable_set to create new thread-locals, and thread_variable_get to reference them.

There is also thread_variables to list all thread-locals, and thread_variable? to check if a given thread-local exists.

Exception handling ↑

When an unhandled exception is raised inside a thread, it will terminate. By default, this exception will not propagate to other threads. The exception is stored and when another thread calls value or join, the exception will be re-raised in that thread.

t = Thread.new{ raise 'something went wrong' }
t.value #=> RuntimeError: something went wrong

An exception can be raised from outside the thread using the Thread#raise instance method, which takes the same parameters as Kernel#raise.

Setting Thread.abort_on_exception = true, Thread#abort_on_exception = true, or $DEBUG = true will cause a subsequent unhandled exception raised in a thread to be automatically re-raised in the main thread.

With the addition of the class method ::handle_interrupt, you can now handle exceptions asynchronously with threads.

Scheduling ↑

Ruby provides a few ways to support scheduling threads in your program.

The first way is by using the class method ::stop, to put the current running thread to sleep and schedule the execution of another thread.

Once a thread is asleep, you can use the instance method wakeup to mark your thread as eligible for scheduling.

You can also try ::pass, which attempts to pass execution to another thread but is dependent on the OS whether a running thread will switch or not. The same goes for priority, which lets you hint to the thread scheduler which threads you want to take precedence when passing execution. This method is also dependent on the OS and may be ignored on some platforms.