Handling exceptions raised in a Ruby thread

Question

I am looking for a solution of classic problem of exception handling. Consider following piece of code:

def foo(n)
  puts \" for #{n}\"
  sleep n
  raise \"a         


        

Answer 1

This will wait for the first thread to either raise or return (and re-raise):

require 'thwait'
def wait_for_first_block_to_complete(*blocks)
  threads = blocks.map do |block|
    Thread.new do
      block.call
    rescue StandardError
      $!
    end
  end
  waiter = ThreadsWait.new(*threads)
  value = waiter.next_wait.value
  threads.each(&:kill)
  raise value if value.is_a?(StandardError)
  value
end

Answer 2

Postponed exceptions processing (Inspired by @Jason Ling)

class SafeThread < Thread

  def initialize(*args, &block)
    super(*args) do
      begin
        block.call
      rescue Exception => e
        @exception = e
      end
    end
  end

  def join
    raise_postponed_exception
    super
    raise_postponed_exception
  end

  def raise_postponed_exception
    Thread.current.raise @exception if @exception
  end

end


puts :start

begin
  thread = SafeThread.new do
    raise 'error from sub-thread'
  end

  puts 'do something heavy before joining other thread'
  sleep 1

  thread.join
rescue Exception => e
  puts "Caught: #{e}"
end

puts 'proper end'

Answer 3

Thread.class_eval do
  alias_method :initialize_without_exception_bubbling, :initialize
  def initialize(*args, &block)
    initialize_without_exception_bubbling(*args) {
      begin
        block.call
      rescue Exception => e
        Thread.main.raise e
      end
    }
  end
end

Answer 4

If you want any unhandled exception in any thread to cause the interpreter to exit, you need to set Thread::abort_on_exception= to true. Unhandled exception cause the thread to stop running. If you don't set this variable to true, exception will only be raised when you call Thread#join or Thread#value for the thread. If set to true it will be raised when it occurs and will propagate to the main thread.

Thread.abort_on_exception=true # add this

def foo(n)
    puts " for #{n}"
    sleep n
    raise "after #{n}"
end

begin
    threads = []
    [15, 5, 20, 3].each do |i|
        threads << Thread.new do
            foo(i)
        end
    end
    threads.each(&:join)

rescue Exception => e

    puts "EXCEPTION: #{e.inspect}"
    puts "MESSAGE: #{e.message}"
end

Output:

 for 5
 for 20
 for 3
 for 15
EXCEPTION: #<RuntimeError: after 3>
MESSAGE: after 3

Note: but if you want any particular thread instance to raise exception this way there are similar abort_on_exception= Thread instance method:

t = Thread.new {
   # do something and raise exception
}
t.abort_on_exception = true