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Bug #17146

closed

Queue operations are allowed after it is frozen

Added by Eregon (Benoit Daloze) over 3 years ago. Updated 6 months ago.

Status:
Closed
Assignee:
-
Target version:
-
ruby -v:
ruby 2.6.6p146 (2020-03-31 revision 67876) [x86_64-linux]
[ruby-core:99903]

Description

[1] pry(main)> q = Queue.new
=> #<Thread::Queue:0x000056263683aee8>
[2] pry(main)> q.freeze
=> #<Thread::Queue:0x000056263683aee8>
[3] pry(main)> q << 1
=> #<Thread::Queue:0x000056263683aee8>
[4] pry(main)> q.pop
=> 1
[5] pry(main)> q.frozen?
=> true

Found by @ko1 (Koichi Sasada) in https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/17100#note-28

I think it's a bug, since those are clear mutations.
I guess old Thread::Queue implemented in Ruby did not have this bug.

Updated by ko1 (Koichi Sasada) over 3 years ago

I guess old Thread::Queue implemented in Ruby did not have this bug.

require "thread"; q=Queue.new.freeze; q.push 1 works without error from Ruby 1.6.0.
Surprisingly before 1.6.0 there is no Queue#freeze.

Updated by jeremyevans0 (Jeremy Evans) over 3 years ago

If a Queue cannot push/pop, it is useless. A Queue doesn't have any operations on that would make sense if you cannot push/pop. This makes it different from most freezable objects, where the object is usable read-only in a frozen state.

In relation to Ractor/deep_freeze discussion, if deep_freeze is called on an object that contains a Queue (directly or transitively), and Queue#freeze makes the Queue unusable, it seems very dangerous. It would be best if Queue was an shareable object whose operations worked across Ractors. For example, assuming the object was sharable, a push of the object onto the Queue on Ractor A, while Ractor B, C, and D were waiting in Queue#pop, would result in only one of B, C, D popping the object. However, I don't know whether or not that is feasible.

I think the best solution for Queue#freeze is Queue.send(:undef_method, :freeze).

Updated by ko1 (Koichi Sasada) over 3 years ago

It seems "what is freeze mean" discussion.

Updated by Eregon (Benoit Daloze) over 3 years ago

ko1 (Koichi Sasada) wrote in #note-1:

require "thread"; q=Queue.new.freeze; q.push 1 works without error from Ruby 1.6.0.

Ah, yes, because it's not deeply frozen:
https://github.com/ruby/ruby/blob/23ccbdf52188b78427f41d75b1a4b81959ac9876/lib/thread.rb#L145

At least #deep_freeze on Queue should prevent #push/#pop.
But I think #freeze should prevent #push/#pop too, just like for every other core collection.

jeremyevans0 (Jeremy Evans) wrote in #note-2:

If a Queue cannot push/pop, it is useless. A Queue doesn't have any operations on that would make sense if you cannot push/pop. This makes it different from most freezable objects, where the object is usable read-only in a frozen state.

One could still use Queue#empty? and Queue#size.
I think freezing a Queue should be similar to Queue#close, but also prevent #pop.
Many objects become severely limited when deeply frozen. I don't think Queue should be a special case.

In relation to Ractor/deep_freeze discussion, if deep_freeze is called on an object that contains a Queue (directly or transitively), and Queue#freeze makes the Queue unusable, it seems very dangerous. It would be best if Queue was an shareable object whose operations worked across Ractors. For example, assuming the object was sharable, a push of the object onto the Queue on Ractor A, while Ractor B, C, and D were waiting in Queue#pop, would result in only one of B, C, D popping the object. However, I don't know whether or not that is feasible.

What if it's a non-shareable object?
It seems unacceptable to copy the object in that case, because how would we know if it is the same or different Ractor that will Queue#pop that element?

So IMHO the simplest thing makes sense: Queue#freeze prevents modifications to the Queue (which is the general contract of #freeze for collections). A Queue cannot be copied by Ractor (neither by #dup nor Marshal.dump). The Queue can be frozen but then indeed is of limited value.

Ractor communicate via their internal channels.
Queues don't work with Ractor (i.e., cannot be used to communicate between Ractors), and they cannot for compatibility (would copy non-shareable elements, which would be incompatible).

I think the best solution for Queue#freeze is Queue.send(:undef_method, :freeze).

AFAIK no other class undefines #freeze, that seems unfriendly.
I don't see any real-world motivation to prevent freezing a Queue (and it would be inconsistent).
So I think this is a plain bug and we should fix it.

Updated by ko1 (Koichi Sasada) over 3 years ago

  • Status changed from Open to Feedback

At last dev-meeting we skipped this issue because it is difficult, but no benefit to change the current behavior.

BTW

AFAIK no other class undefines #freeze, that seems unfriendly.

ENV.freeze raises an error (`freeze': cannot freeze ENV (TypeError)).

Actions #6

Updated by jeremyevans0 (Jeremy Evans) over 3 years ago

  • Status changed from Feedback to Closed

Updated by Eregon (Benoit Daloze) over 2 years ago

  • Status changed from Closed to Open

Why was this closed?

I think there is only one rational answer here:
Queue#freeze should prevent mutations to the Queue just like for Array/Hash/etc.

There is no other "nested object" (i.e., the queue contents) exposed to user code, so it would just be weird if Queue#deep_freeze would actually prevent mutation of the queue but Queue#freeze does not.

"deep freeze" should be equivalent to calling freeze on each object in an object graph, this can't work if Queue#freeze doesn't prevent mutations.

Updated by jeremyevans0 (Jeremy Evans) over 2 years ago

Eregon (Benoit Daloze) wrote in #note-7:

Why was this closed?

Because there was no feedback after the last message from @ko1 (Koichi Sasada), and it was decided at the developer meeting last year that there was no benefit to changing the behavior.

You are welcome to bring this issue up again at another developer meeting. However, if the same conclusion is reached, I think this issue should be closed again.

Updated by Eregon (Benoit Daloze) over 2 years ago

OK, that no benefit to changing the behavior. was not reported here but I guess it's in the dev meeting log.

Benefit is consistency and being able to design deep freezing/immutable without making an exception for Queue.
Every time deep freezing/immutable comes up, this comes up as well as a problem.

I argue the current behavior is useful to nobody, and it's highly inconsistent, i.e., let's fix it.

Updated by Eregon (Benoit Daloze) over 2 years ago

(an alternative would be to have some other way to freeze the Queue for the purpose of deep_freeze/Immutable, but I see no value to that, the way is called freeze and it already works for most objects).

Updated by jeremyevans0 (Jeremy Evans) over 2 years ago

Eregon (Benoit Daloze) wrote in #note-9:

OK, that no benefit to changing the behavior. was not reported here but I guess it's in the dev meeting log.

ko1 (Koichi Sasada) wrote in #note-5:

At last dev-meeting we skipped this issue because it is difficult, but no benefit to change the current behavior.

Updated by Eregon (Benoit Daloze) over 2 years ago

Indeed, sorry, I missed that somehow.

Updated by ioquatix (Samuel Williams) over 2 years ago

I think there is only one rational answer here: Queue#freeze should prevent mutations to the Queue just like for Array/Hash/etc.

I agree with this for consistency reasons. Anyone who is freezing a queue and expecting it to work has buggy code.

Updated by matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto) 6 months ago

Since frozen queue is meaningless, if you care about consistency, we should prohibit freeze queues, like ENV.

Matz.

Updated by mame (Yusuke Endoh) 6 months ago

I would like to add a point that came up during the dev meeting: if a thread is waiting for Queue#pop, and another thread freezes the Queue, what should the first thread do? Wait forever? Raise a FrozenError?

To raise a FrozenError, it needs to be told that the Queue was asynchronously frozen by another thread. In other words, Queue#freeze needs to wake up the thread waiting for the Queue, which is likely to do more than #freeze would normally be expected to do.

Updated by jeremyevans0 (Jeremy Evans) 6 months ago

I submitted a pull request to have {Queue,SizedQueue}#freeze raise TypeError, as ENV.freeze does: https://github.com/ruby/ruby/pull/8515

Actions #17

Updated by jeremyevans (Jeremy Evans) 6 months ago

  • Status changed from Open to Closed

Applied in changeset git|62181e17da2db729eb6d95f6edff9e028ff557b6.


Make {Queue,SizedQueue}#freeze raise TypeError

Fixes [Bug #17146]

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