$0 is truncated

[Brian Candler]

If I assign a new value to $0, I find it is truncated.

$ cat test-dollar0.rb
puts $0
str = "/foo" * 20
puts str.size
$0 = str
puts $0
puts $0.size

$ ruby test-dollar0.rb
test-dollar0.rb
80
/foo/foo/foo/foo/foo
20

$ ln -s test-dollar0.rb td.rb
$ ruby td.rb
td.rb
80
/foo/foo/f
10

In 1.8.6 I can get around this by $0.replace('....'), which sets $0 to
any string I like. However this doesn't work in 1.8.7 or 1.9, because in
those versions $0 is a frozen string.

Any suggestions for how to fix this? The application is that I want to
start launcher program A, which in turn loads program B. Program B may
be a Test::Unit test suite, and Test::Unit gets the test suite name from
$0. So I either end up with the test suite having the name of program A
(which is wrong), or a truncated version of program B's name (which is
also wrong)

Thanks,

Brian.

 

[Robert Klemme]

If I assign a new value to $0, I find it is truncated.

$ cat test-dollar0.rb
puts $0
str = "/foo" * 20
puts str.size
$0 = str
puts $0
puts $0.size

$ ruby test-dollar0.rb
test-dollar0.rb
80
/foo/foo/foo/foo/foo
20

$ ln -s test-dollar0.rb td.rb
$ ruby td.rb
td.rb
80
/foo/foo/f
10

In 1.8.6 I can get around this by $0.replace('....'), which sets $0 to
any string I like. However this doesn't work in 1.8.7 or 1.9, because in
those versions $0 is a frozen string.

Any suggestions for how to fix this? The application is that I want to
start launcher program A, which in turn loads program B. Program B may
be a Test::Unit test suite, and Test::Unit gets the test suite name from
$0. So I either end up with the test suite having the name of program A
(which is wrong), or a truncated version of program B's name (which is
also wrong)

Modifying $0 seems a bit hackish to me. Can't you just set the name
explicitly?

Kind regards

robert

 

[Eric Hodel]

If I assign a new value to $0, I find it is truncated.

This behavior is OS dependent, try a different OS.

 

[Brian Candler]

Hi,

In message "Re: $0 is truncated"
on Sat, 16 May 2009 22:03:36 +0900, Brian Candler

|If I assign a new value to $0, I find it is truncated.

Platform info please. On some platforms, changing program name (as
seen from ps for example) is limited to the original size. We cannot
relax OS limitation.

This is under Linux (Ubuntu Hardy).

Yes, I'm aware that maybe setproctitle has limits, but it's also useful
to set $0 to a longer Ruby string (even if that's not fully reflecting
in the proctitle), because another piece of Ruby code in the same
process may be testing the value of $0.

In ruby 1.8.6, I can use $0.replace("any long string") which works just
fine for setting $0 - presumably not setting the proctitle of course.
But this stopped working in 1.8.7/1.9 because $0 is frozen.

Regards,

Brian.

 

[Brian Candler]

[ ] it's OK (for you) that $0 is not always corresponding to process
name read by ps etc.; in this case if you set $0 longer than the
limit, $0 will be updated but the proc title will be truncated to
the limit.

Yes, that would be my preferred option.

I don't mind whether $0 is frozen. Actually, I wrote $0 = ...
originally, and only changed it to $0.replace(...) as a workaround.

Regards,

Brian.

 

[Eric Hodel]

[ ] it's OK (for you) that $0 is not always corresponding to process
name read by ps etc.; in this case if you set $0 longer than the
limit, $0 will be updated but the proc title will be truncated
to
the limit.

Yes, that would be my preferred option.

I don't mind whether $0 is frozen. Actually, I wrote $0 = ...
originally, and only changed it to $0.replace(...) as a workaround.

In this case, why is it important that you check $0? Why not use any
other global variable?

 

[Yossef Mendelssohn]

In this case, why is it important that you check $0? Why not use any =A0
other global variable?

I'm guessing it has to do with the bit in the original post where he
said "Test::Unit gets the test suite name from $0".

 

[Nobuyoshi Nakada]

Hi,

At Sun, 17 May 2009 05:36:39 +0900,
Brian Candler wrote in [ruby-talk:336729]:

I don't mind whether $0 is frozen. Actually, I wrote $0 = ...
originally, and only changed it to $0.replace(...) as a workaround.

You can find a hint in ext/extmk.rb.

$progname = $0
alias $PROGRAM_NAME $0
alias $0 $progname

trace_var$0) {|val| $PROGRAM_NAME = val} # update for ps

 

[Brian Candler]

Hi,

At Sun, 17 May 2009 05:36:39 +0900,
Brian Candler wrote in [ruby-talk:336729]:

I don't mind whether $0 is frozen. Actually, I wrote $0 = ...
originally, and only changed it to $0.replace(...) as a workaround.

You can find a hint in ext/extmk.rb.

$progname = $0
alias $PROGRAM_NAME $0
alias $0 $progname

trace_var$0) {|val| $PROGRAM_NAME = val} # update for ps

Wow, that's a trick I wouldn't have thought of in a hundred years
Thank you.