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Feature #8976

Updated by nobu (Nobuyoshi Nakada) over 8 years ago

Yesterday, we had a face-to-face developer meeting. 
 https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/projects/ruby/wiki/DevelopersMeeting20131001Japan 
 Several committers attended. 
 matz didn't attended, though.    (This means this issue is not concluded.) 

 We believe we found a better way to freeze static string literals for 
 less GC pressure. 
 "static string literal" is a string literal without dynamic expression. 

 Currently, `f`-suffix, `"..."f`, f-suffix, "..."f, is used to freeze a string literal to avoid 
 String object allocation. 

 There are several problems for `f`-suffix: f-suffix: 

 * The notation is ugly. 
 * Syntax error on Ruby 2.0. 
   We cannot use the feature in version independent libraries. 
   So, it is difficult to deploy. 
 * Need to modify for each string literal. 
   This is cumbersome. 

 The new way we found is a file-scope directive as follows 

   # freeze_string: true 

 The above comment at top of a file changes semantics of 
 static string literals in the file. 
 The static string literals will be frozen and always returns same object. 
 (The semantics of dynamic string literals is not changed.) 

 This way has following benefits: 

 * No ugly `f`-suffix. f-suffix. 
 * No syntax error on older Ruby. 
 * We need only a line for each file. 

 We can write version independent library using frozen static string literals as follows. 

 * Use the directive at top of the file: `# # freeze_string: true` true 
   Older Ruby ignore this as a comment. 
 * Use `"...".dup` "...".dup for strings to be modified. 
   Older Ruby has small disadvantage: useless `dup` dup is called. 

 Note that the directive effects all static string literals regardless of 
 single quotes, double quotes, `%q`-string, `%qq`-string %q-string, %qq-string and here documents. 
 The reason that the directive is effective not only single quotes is 
 we want to use escape sequences such as `\n` \n in frozen string literals. 

 Also note that similar directive is already exist: 

 ~~~ 
 

   % ruby -w -e ' 
 
   def m 
     end 
   end 
 ' 
 
   -e:3: warning: mismatched indentations at 'end' with 'def' at 2 
 
   % ruby -w -e '# -*- warn_indent: false -*- 
 
   def m 
     end 
   end 
 ' 
 ~~~ 

 The directive, `warn_indent: false`, warn_indent: false, disables "mismatched indentations" warning. 

 nobu implemented this feature in the meeting. 
 Please attach the patch, nobu. 

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