Bug #20607: Exception messages are inconsistent when thread-local variables are accessed

• Status: Open
• Assignee: -
• Target version: -
• ruby -v: 3.2.4
• Backport: 3.1: UNKNOWN, 3.2: UNKNOWN, 3.3: UNKNOWN

[andrykonchin (Andrew Konchin)]

Thread's methods to manipulate thread-local variables raise TypeError exceptions with slightly different messages when the key argument is not a String or a Symbol. The message is either is not a symbol or is not a symbol nor a string. As far as both String and Symbol arguments are correct it seems the is not a symbol nor a string message is more accurate and should be used consistently.

The following methods raise is not a symbol error:

@t.thread_variable_set(:a, 0) # for some methods it's important to have some thread-local variables assigned

@t.thread_variable_get(123) # => 123 is not a symbol (TypeError)
t.thread_variable_set(123, 1) # => 123 is not a symbol (TypeError)
t.thread_variable?(123) # => 123 is not a symbol (TypeError)
t[123] = 1 # => 123 is not a symbol (TypeError)

The following methods raise is not a symbol nor a string error:

t.fetch(123) # => 123 is not a symbol nor a string (TypeError)
t.key?(123) # => 123 is not a symbol nor a string (TypeError)
t[123] # => 123 is not a symbol nor a string (TypeError)

[jeremyevans0 (Jeremy Evans)]

I submitted a pull request to make the error message consistent: https://github.com/ruby/ruby/pull/11097