Feature #21637
Updated by viralpraxis (Iaroslav Kurbatov) about 2 months ago
## Motivation
Currently, there is no straightforward way to track global variable assignments at runtime.
The only workaround I am aware of involves using the `line` TracePoint event, combined with manipulation of the source code's AST, but this approach is extremely slow and impractical.
I'd like to propose a new `gvar_set` (and probably `gvar_get`, but that's out of the scope of this ticket) event which would fire whenever a global variable is written to.
## Context
There's current an open https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/15854 feature request with a PR by @st0012, but they currently do not address the global variables, so I've decided to open a new one and a new PR.
There's an open gvar-specific question: should "system" global variables like `$!` trigger the `gvar_set` event? (the current implementation does not)
## Usage example
```ruby
# frozen-string-literal: true
TracePoint.new(:gvar_set) { p [it.gvar_name, it.return_value] }.enable do
$G1 = 1
$G2 = 2
$G3 = 3
end
# [:$G1, 1]
# [:$G2, 2]
# [:$G3, 3]
```
PR: https://github.com/ruby/ruby/pull/14827