Ruby 2.5 adds Thread.report_on_exception by default

Let's see what happens when an exception is raised inside a thread.

division_thread = Thread.new do
  puts "Calculating 4/0 in division_thread"
  puts "Result is: #{4/0}"
  puts "Exiting from division_thread"
end

sleep 1

puts "In the main thread"

Execution of it looks like this.

$ RBENV_VERSION=2.4.0 ruby thread_example_1.rb

Calculating 4/0 in division_thread

In the main thread

Note that the last two lines from the block were not printed. Also notice that after failing in the thread the program continued to run in main thread. That's why we got the message "In the main thread".

This is because the default behavior of Ruby is to silently ignore exceptions in threads and then to continue to execute in the main thread.

Enabling abort_on_exception to stop on failure

If we want an exception in a thread to stop further processing both in the thread and in the main thread then we can enable Thread[.#]abort_on_exception on that thread to achieve that.

Notice that in the below code we are using Thread.current.

division_thread = Thread.new do
  Thread.current.abort_on_exception = true

  puts "Calculating 4/0 in division_thread"
  puts "Result is: #{4/0}"
  puts "Exiting from division_thread"
end

sleep 1

puts "In the main thread"

$ RBENV_VERSION=2.4.0 ruby thread_example_2.rb

Calculating 4/0 in division_thread

thread_example_2.rb:5:in `/': divided by 0 (ZeroDivisionError)
  from thread_example_2.rb:5:in `block in <main>'

As we can see once an exception was encountered in the thread then processing stopped on both in the thread and in the main thread.

Note that Thread.current.abort_on_exception = true activates this behavior only for the current thread.

If we want this behavior globally for all the threads then we need to use Thread.abort_on_exception = true.

Running program with debug flag to stop on failure

Let's run the original code with --debug option.

$ RBENV_VERSION=2.4.0 ruby --debug thread_example_1.rb

thread_example_1.rb:1: warning: assigned but unused variable - division_thread

Calculating 4/0 in division_thread

Exception `ZeroDivisionError' at thread_example_1.rb:3 - divided by 0
Exception `ZeroDivisionError' at thread_example_1.rb:7 - divided by 0
thread_example_1.rb:3:in `/': divided by 0 (ZeroDivisionError)
  from thread_example_1.rb:3:in `block in <main>'

In this case the exception is printed in detail and the code in main thread was not executed.

Usually when we execute a program with --debug option then the behavior of the program does not change. We expect the program to print more stuff but we do not expect behavior to change. However in this case the --debug option changes the behavior of the program.

Running program with join on thread to stop on failure

If a thread raises an exception and abort_on_exception and $DEBUG flags are not set then that exception will be processed at the time of joining of the thread.

division_thread = Thread.new do
  puts "Calculating 4/0 in division_thread"
  puts "Result is: #{4/0}"
  puts "Exiting from division_thread"
end

division_thread.join

puts "In the main thread"

$ RBENV_VERSION=2.4.0 ruby thread_example_3.rb

Calculating 4/0 in division_thread

thread_example_3.rb:3:in `/': divided by 0 (ZeroDivisionError)
  from thread_example_3.rb:3:in `block in <main>'

Both Thread#join and Thread#value will stop processing in the thread and in the main thread once an exception is encountered.

Introduction of report_on_exception in Ruby 2.4

Almost 6 years ago, Charles Nutter (headius) had proposed that the exceptions raised in threads should be automatically logged and reported, by default. To make his point, he explained issues similar to what we discussed above about the Ruby's behavior of silently ignoring exceptions in threads. Here is the relevant discussion on his proposal.

Following are some of the notable points discussed.

• Enabling Thread[.#]abort_on_exception, by default, is not always a good idea.
• There should be a flag which, if enabled, would print the thread-killing exception info.
• In many cases, people spawn one-off threads which are not hard-referenced using Thread#join or Thread#value. Such threads gets garbage collected. Should it report the thread-killing exception at the time of garbage collection if such a flag is enabled?
• Should it warn using Warning#warn or redirect to STDERR device while reporting?

Charles Nutter suggested that a configurable global flag Thread.report_on_exception and instance-level flag Thread#report_on_exception should be implemented having its default value as true. When set to true, it should report print exception information.

Matz and other core members approved that Thread[.#]report_on_exception can be implemented having its default value set to false.

Charles Nutter, Benoit Daloze and other people demanded that it should be true by default so that programmers can be aware of the silently disappearing threads because of exceptions.

Shyouhei Urabe advised that due to some technical challenges, the default value should be set to false so as this feature could land in Ruby. Once this feature is in then the default value can be changed in a later release.

Nobuyoshi Nakada (nobu) pushed an implementation for Thread[.#]report_on_exception with a default value set to false. It was released in Ruby 2.4.0.

Let's try enabling report_on_exception globally using Thread.report_on_exception.

Thread.report_on_exception = true

division_thread = Thread.new do
  puts "Calculating 4/0 in division_thread"
  puts "Result is: #{4/0}"
  puts "Exiting from division_thread"
end

addition_thread = Thread.new do
  puts "Calculating nil+4 in addition_thread"
  puts "Result is: #{nil+4}"
  puts "Exiting from addition_thread"
end

sleep 1

puts "In the main thread"

$ RBENV_VERSION=2.4.0 ruby thread_example_4.rb

Calculating 4/0 in division_thread

#<Thread:0x007fb10f018200@thread_example_4.rb:3 run> terminated with exception:
thread_example_4.rb:5:in `/': divided by 0 (ZeroDivisionError)
  from thread_example_4.rb:5:in `block in <main>'

Calculating nil+4 in addition_thread

#<Thread:0x007fb10f01aca8@thread_example_4.rb:9 run> terminated with exception:
thread_example_4.rb:11:in `block in <main>': undefined method `+' for nil:NilClass (NoMethodError)

In the main thread

It now reports the exceptions in all threads. It prints that the Thread:0x007fb10f018200 was terminated with exception: divided by 0 (ZeroDivisionError). Similarly, another thread Thread:0x007fb10f01aca8 was terminated with exception: undefined method '+' for nil:NilClass (NoMethodError).

Instead of enabling it globally for all threads, we can enable it for a particular thread using instance-level Thread#report_on_exception.

division_thread = Thread.new do
  puts "Calculating 4/0 in division_thread"
  puts "Result is: #{4/0}"
  puts "Exiting from division_thread"
end

addition_thread = Thread.new do
  Thread.current.report_on_exception = true

  puts "Calculating nil+4 in addition_thread"
  puts "Result is: #{nil+4}"
  puts "Exiting from addition_thread"
end

sleep 1

puts "In the main thread"

In the above case we have enabled report_on_exception flag just for addition_thread.

Let's execute it.

$ RBENV_VERSION=2.4.0 ruby thread_example_5.rb

Calculating 4/0 in division_thread

Calculating nil+4 in addition_thread

#<Thread:0x007f8e6b007f70@thread_example_5.rb:7 run> terminated with exception:
thread_example_5.rb:11:in `block in <main>': undefined method `+' for nil:NilClass (NoMethodError)

In the main thread

Notice how it didn't report the exception which killed thread division_thread. As expected, it reported the exception that killed thread addition_thread.

With the above changes ruby reports the exception as soon as it encounters. However if these threads are joined then they will still raise exception.

division_thread = Thread.new do
  Thread.current.report_on_exception = true

  puts "Calculating 4/0 in division_thread"
  puts "Result is: #{4/0}"
  puts "Exiting from division_thread"
end

begin
  division_thread.join
rescue => exception
  puts "Explicitly caught - #{exception.class}: #{exception.message}"
end

puts "In the main thread"

$ RBENV_VERSION=2.4.0 ruby thread_example_6.rb

Calculating 4/0 in division_thread

#<Thread:0x007f969d00d828@thread_example_6.rb:1 run> terminated with exception:
thread_example_6.rb:5:in `/': divided by 0 (ZeroDivisionError)
  from thread_example_6.rb:5:in `block in <main>'

Explicitly caught - ZeroDivisionError: divided by 0

In the main thread

See how we were still be able to handle the exception raised in division_thread above after joining it despite it reported it before due to Thread#report_on_exception flag.

report_on_exception defaults to true in Ruby 2.5

Benoit Daloze (eregon) strongly advocated that both the Thread.report_on_exception and Thread#report_on_exception should have default value as true. Here is the relevant feature request.

After approval from Matz, Benoit Daloze pushed the implementation by fixing the failing tests and silencing the unnecessary verbose warnings.

It was released as part of Ruby 2.5.

Now in ruby 2.5 we can simply write like this.

division_thread = Thread.new do
  puts "Calculating 4/0 in division_thread"
  puts "Result is: #{4/0}"
  puts "Exiting from division_thread"
end

addition_thread = Thread.new do
  puts "Calculating nil+4 in addition_thread"
  puts "Result is: #{nil+4}"
  puts "Exiting from addition_thread"
end

sleep 1

puts "In the main thread"

Let's execute it with Ruby 2.5.

$ RBENV_VERSION=2.5.0 ruby thread_example_7.rb

Calculating 4/0 in division_thread

#<Thread:0x00007f827689a238@thread_example_7.rb:1 run> terminated with exception (report_on_exception is true):
Traceback (most recent call last):
  1: from thread_example_7.rb:3:in `block in <main>'
thread_example_7.rb:3:in `/': divided by 0 (ZeroDivisionError)

Calculating nil+4 in addition_thread

#<Thread:0x00007f8276899b58@thread_example_7.rb:7 run> terminated with exception (report_on_exception is true):
Traceback (most recent call last):
thread_example_7.rb:9:in `block in <main>': undefined method `+' for nil:NilClass (NoMethodError)

In the main thread

We can disable the thread exception reporting globally using Thread.report_on_exception = false or for a particular thread using Thread.current.report_on_exception = false.

Future Possibilities

In addition to this feature, Charles Nutter also suggested that it will be good if there exists a callback handler which can accept a block to be executed when a thread dies due to an exception. The callback handler can be at global level or it can be for a specific thread.

Thread.on_exception do
  # some stuff
end

In the absence of such handler libraries need to resort to custom code to handle exceptions. Here is how Sidekiq handles exceptions raised in threads.

Important thing to note is that report_on_exception does not change behavior of the code. It does more reporting when a thread dies and when it comes to thread dies more reporting is a good thing.