Thread Safety: Class Variables in Ruby

Question

Performing writes/reads on class variables in Ruby is not thread safe. Performing writes/reads on instance variables appears to be thread safe. That said, is it thread safe to perform write/reads on instance variables of a class or metaclass object?

What are the differences between these three (contrived) examples in terms of thread safety?

EXAMPLE 1: MUTUAL EXCLUSION

class BestUser # (singleton class)
  @@instance_lock = Mutex.new

  # Memoize instance
  def self.instance
    @@instance_lock.synchronize do
      @@instance ||= best
    end
  end
end

EXAMPLE 2: INSTANCE VARIABLE STORAGE

class BestUser # (singleton class)
  # Memoize instance
  def self.instance
    @instance ||= best
  end
end

EXAMPLE 3: INSTANCE VARIABLE STORAGE ON METACLASS

class BestUser # (singleton class)
  # Memoize instance
  class << self
    def instance
      @instance ||= best
    end
  end
end

Answer 1

Examples 2 and 3 are exactly the same. Modules and classes are also objects, and defining a singleton method on a object actually defines it on its singleton class.

With that said, and since you have already established instance variable access is thread safe, examples 2 and 3 are thread safe. Example 1 should also be thread safe, but it is inferior to the other two because it requires manual variable synchronization.

However, if you need to take advantage of the fact that class variables are shared within the inheritance tree, you may have to use the first approach.

---

The inherent thread safety of the Ruby language depends on the implementation.

MRI, before 1.9, implemented threads at the VM level. This means that even though Ruby is capable of scheduling code execution, nothing is really running in parallel within a single Ruby process. Ruby 1.9 uses native threads synchronized with a global interpreter lock. Only the context which holds the lock may execute code.

n, x = 10, 0

n.times do
  Thread.new do
    n.times do
      x += 1
    end
  end
end

sleep 1
puts x
# 100

The value of x is always consistent on MRI. On JRuby, however, the picture changes. Multiple executions of the same algorithm yielded the values 76, 87, 98, 88, 94. The result could be anything because JRuby uses Java threads, which are real threads and execute in parallel.

Just like in the Java language, manual synchronization is required in order to safely use threads in JRuby. The following code always results in consistent values for x:

require 'thread'
n, x, mutex = 10, 0, Mutex.new

n.times do
  Thread.new do
    n.times do
      mutex.synchronize do
        x += 1
      end
    end
  end
end

sleep 1
puts x
# 100

Answer 2

Instance variables are not thread safe (and class variables are even less thread safe)

Example 2 and 3, both with instance variables, are equivalent, and they are NOT thread safe, like @VincentXie stated. However, here is a better example to demonstrate why they are not:

class Foo
  def self.bar(message)
    @bar ||= message
  end
end

t1 = Thread.new do
    puts "bar is #{Foo.bar('thread1')}"
end

t2 = Thread.new do
    puts "bar is #{Foo.bar('thread2')}"
end

sleep 2

t1.join
t2.join

=> bar is thread1
=> bar is thread1

Because the instance variable is shared amongst all of the threads, like @VincentXie stated in his comment.

PS: Instance variables are sometimes referred to as "class instance variables", depending on the context in which they are used:

When self is a class, they are instance variables of classes(class instance variables). When self is a object, they are instance variables of objects(instance variables). - WindorC's answer to a question about this

Answer 3

Examples 2 and 3 are exactly the same. They are not thread-safety at all.

Please see the example Below.

class Foo
  def self.bar
    @bar ||= create_no
  end

  def self.create_no
    no = rand(10000)
    sleep 1
    no
  end
end

10.times.map do
  Thread.new do
    puts "bar is #{Foo.bar}"
  end
end.each(&:join)

It's result is not same. The result is same when using mutex as below.

class Foo
  @mutex = Mutex.new

  def self.bar
    @mutex.synchronize {
      @bar ||= create_no
    }
  end

  def self.create_no
    no = rand(10000)
    sleep 1
    no
  end
end

10.times.map do
  Thread.new do
    puts "bar is #{Foo.bar}"
  end
end.each(&:join)

It is run on CRuby 2.3.0.