Continuation

Class

Continuation objects are generated by Kernel#callcc, after having +require+d continuation. They hold a return address and execution context, allowing a nonlocal return to the end of the callcc block from anywhere within a program. Continuations are somewhat analogous to a structured version of C’s setjmp/longjmp (although they contain more state, so you might consider them closer to threads).

For instance:

require "continuation"
arr = [ "Freddie", "Herbie", "Ron", "Max", "Ringo" ]
callcc{|cc| $cc = cc}
puts(message = arr.shift)
$cc.call unless message =~ /Max/

produces:

Freddie
Herbie
Ron
Max

Also you can call callcc in other methods:

require "continuation"

def g
  arr = [ "Freddie", "Herbie", "Ron", "Max", "Ringo" ]
  cc = callcc { |cc| cc }
  puts arr.shift
  return cc, arr.size
end

def f
  c, size = g
  c.call(c) if size > 1
end

f

This (somewhat contrived) example allows the inner loop to abandon processing early:

require "continuation"
callcc {|cont|
  for i in 0..4
    print "#{i}: "
    for j in i*5...(i+1)*5
      cont.call() if j == 17
      printf "%3d", j
    end
  end
}
puts

produces:

0:   0  1  2  3  4
1:   5  6  7  8  9
2:  10 11 12 13 14
3:  15 16

Instance Methods

cont[args, ...]

cont.c View on GitHub

An alias for call

cont.call(args, ...)

cont[args, ...]

cont.c View on GitHub

          
            static VALUE
rb_cont_call(int argc, VALUE *argv, VALUE contval)
{
    rb_context_t *cont = cont_ptr(contval);
    rb_thread_t *th = GET_THREAD();

    if (cont_thread_value(cont) != th->self) {
        rb_raise(rb_eRuntimeError, "continuation called across threads");
    }
    if (cont->saved_ec.fiber_ptr) {
        if (th->ec->fiber_ptr != cont->saved_ec.fiber_ptr) {
            rb_raise(rb_eRuntimeError, "continuation called across fiber");
        }
    }
    rollback_ensure_stack(contval, th->ec->ensure_list, cont->ensure_array);

    cont->argc = argc;
    cont->value = make_passing_arg(argc, argv);

    cont_restore_0(cont, &contval);
    UNREACHABLE_RETURN(Qnil);
}

Invokes the continuation. The program continues from the end of the callcc block. If no arguments are given, the original callcc returns nil. If one argument is given, callcc returns it. Otherwise, an array containing args is returned.

callcc {|cont|  cont.call }           #=> nil
callcc {|cont|  cont.call 1 }         #=> 1
callcc {|cont|  cont.call 1, 2, 3 }   #=> [1, 2, 3]