Weird Ruby: Using `SUPPORT_JOKE` to actually help!

Published on: 24 May 2022 In categories:

ruby
weird

So, Ruby, for whatever reason, has a bunch of easter eggs hidden in its VM. There is the __goto__ and __label__ syntax; for when you really really need a goto statement in your program! And there are also a couple of specific VM instructions that you can optionally enable.

To enable all this you need to hardcode the OPT_SUPPORT_JOKE preprocessor constant in vm_opts.h to 1 (it defaults to 0 obviously).

As an aside: this variable is all wired up via the autotools, but setting it the normal way using cppflags="-DOPT_SUPPORT_JOKE=1" doesn’t work, because the Ruby script that parses the VMs instruction definition DSL into actual C code relies on grepping the content of vm_opts.h for its optional values, but when you use cflags, they’re effectively configured in the memory of a different process.

So if you rely on the cflags only, you get a bunch of code inside #ifdef’s that is compiled assuming certain instructions exist, but those instructions don’t exist because their existence depends on an actual 1 being hard coded inside the file.

Ask me how I know.

Anyway… Ranting aside

I went down this rabbit hole for a reason. I was looking at the output of running ruby with the various --dump options to work out which ast nodes generated which YARV instructions.

For instance, the Ruby code while true; end generates this AST

❯ ruby --dump=parsetree_with_comment -e 'while true; end'

# @ NODE_SCOPE (id: 3, line: 1, location: (1,0)-(1,15))
# | # new scope
# | # format: [nd_tbl]: local table, [nd_args]: arguments, [nd_body]: body
# +- nd_tbl (local table): (empty)
# +- nd_args (arguments):
# |   (null node)
# +- nd_body (body):
#     @ NODE_WHILE (id: 2, line: 1, location: (1,0)-(1,15))*
#     | # while statement
#     | # format: while [nd_cond]; [nd_body]; end
#     | # example: while x == 1; foo; end
#     +- nd_state (begin-end-while?): 1 (while-end)
#     +- nd_cond (condition):
#     |   @ NODE_TRUE (id: 0, line: 1, location: (1,6)-(1,10))
#     |   | # true
#     |   | # format: true
#     |   | # example: true
#     +- nd_body (body):
#         @ NODE_BEGIN (id: 1, line: 1, location: (1,11)-(1,11))
#         | # begin statement
#         | # format: begin; [nd_body]; end
#         | # example: begin; 1; end
#         +- nd_body (body):
#             (null node)

which then compiles into this YARV bytecode, which the VM then runs:

❯ ruby --dump=insns_without_opt -e 'while true; end'
== disasm: #<ISeq:<main>@-e:1 (1,0)-(1,15)> (catch: FALSE)
jump                                   6                         (   1)[Li]
putnil
pop
jump                                   6
jump                                   6
putnil
leave

And what I wanted was basically puts debugging, but for bytecode. I want to know exactly which lines of bytecode are emitted from each AST node.

My usual trick for this, in normal code land, would be to puts some known text out to stderr or whatever, at the beginning, and at the end of the code region I care about, so I can isolate in the output, exactly which log messages I care about.

So I wondered if I could make a couple of no-op YARV instructions that I could just insert into my bytecode at various points to let me know where certain things are being triggered from.

And as we mentioned earlier, It turns out that YARV has a couple of extraneous, random instructions that maybe we can used to help debug stuff. They’re not quite no-ops, as they do push values back onto the stack (And I guess they were probably funny once. Maybe1).

/* BLT */
DEFINE_INSN_IF(SUPPORT_JOKE)
bitblt
()
()
(VALUE ret)
{
    ret = rb_str_new2("a bit of bacon, lettuce and tomato");
}

/* The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything */
DEFINE_INSN_IF(SUPPORT_JOKE)
answer
()
()
(VALUE ret)
{
    ret = INT2FIX(42);
}

Neither of these take any operands (illustrated by the first set of empty parenthesis); nor do they pop values from the stack (the second empty parens); but they do push a value onto the stack (the value ret in the third set of parens).

This means that, providing you’re only debugging simple bytecode (my while true; end is a good example), then you can use these as is. But as soon as you are relying on the contents of the stack you’re going to need to do something a bit more nuanced (even if that is just following up with a pop instruction to get rid of the crap you just pushed onto the stack).

Add them to your bytecode at various points in compile.c using the macro ADD_INSN like this:

ADD_INSN(ret, line_node, bitlt);

And wonder in the beauty of your work

❯ ./miniruby --dump=insns_without_opt -e 'while true; end'
== disasm: #<ISeq:<main>@-e:1 (1,0)-(1,15)> (catch: FALSE)
bitblt                                                           (   1)[Li]
jump                                   7
putnil
pop
jump                                   7
jump                                   7
putnil
bitblt
leave

sci-fi loving, geriatric-millenial, british computer nerd. But can we just
accept that the number 42 is just a number. And that these jokes have been
[done to
death](https://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Associations/CollectionProxy.html#method-i-forty_two)
at this point. Please.