Ruby stack level too deep exception NOT from recursive infinite loop

Question

EDIT : (SOLVED) actually it probably was raised BECAUSE OF an infinite loop

I was coding and after adding a method I got this :

user_name@the_computer:/media/ECC3-C3B0/Prog/mts/src/mts$ rake test --trace
** Invoke test (first_time)
** Execute test
/home/user_name/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p194/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/custom_require.rb:36: stack level too deep (SystemStackError)
rake aborted!
Command failed with status (1): [/home/user_name/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p19...]
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/file_utils.rb:53:in `block in create_shell_runner'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/file_utils.rb:45:in `call'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/file_utils.rb:45:in `sh'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/file_utils_ext.rb:39:in `sh'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/file_utils.rb:82:in `ruby'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/file_utils_ext.rb:39:in `ruby'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/testtask.rb:99:in `block (2 levels) in define'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/file_utils_ext.rb:60:in `verbose'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/testtask.rb:98:in `block in define'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/task.rb:205:in `call'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/task.rb:205:in `block in execute'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/task.rb:200:in `each'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/task.rb:200:in `execute'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/task.rb:158:in `block in invoke_with_call_chain'
/home/user_name/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p194/lib/ruby/1.9.1/monitor.rb:211:in `mon_synchronize'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/task.rb:151:in `invoke_with_call_chain'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/task.rb:144:in `invoke'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/application.rb:116:in `invoke_task'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/application.rb:94:in `block (2 levels) in top_level'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/application.rb:94:in `each'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/application.rb:94:in `block in top_level'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/application.rb:133:in `standard_exception_handling'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/application.rb:88:in `top_level'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/application.rb:66:in `block in run'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/application.rb:133:in `standard_exception_handling'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/application.rb:63:in `run'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/bin/rake:33:in `<top (required)>'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/bin/rake:19:in `load'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/bin/rake:19:in `<main>'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194/bin/ruby_noexec_wrapper:14:in `eval'
/home/user_name/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194/bin/ruby_noexec_wrapper:14:in `<main>'
Tasks: TOP => test

I'm pretty sure there is no infinite recursive loop involved.

The code is for now somehow gemified, but I also got the error running the ruby file directly.

Thank you for any help on how to (get some information to, run some tests to) fix the problem, if possible without having to rewrite the whole thing...

Environment :

ruby 1.9.3p194 / rails 3.2.8, installed via rvm
the program at this stage only uses rails string inflexions functions
OS : linux kubuntu i386
memory 4GO
'ulimit -s' : 8192 (stack size in kB)

What I tried unsuccessfully :

removed the chunk of code where the exception was initially raised, but it was still raised a tiny bit later at runtime
set stack size with command line 'ulimit -s 20000', 'ulimit -s unlimited'. Same error, apparently at the same place (which makes me think the stack size wasn't actually changed)
downgraded to ruby1.9.2 / rails3.1.3, got the same message
same error under Windows

Application context :

I'm writing an application that heavily uses ruby mixins.

Besides I created a bunch of classes that generate mixins (instance / class methods modules to be included by other classes).

So all in all I end up with quite a bit of generated named modules with some custom generated code, and classes with many ancestors.

But that should eventually save me quite a bit of pain in the as$ when I write the program that sits on top of this lib (that's the plan anyway).

Resources I used :

EDIT : Until some code is available for the showing/testing, let's abstract my question down to this one : Are there other cases that raise stack level too deep exception, besides the classical program-execution-tree-is-too-deep scenario (crossing fingers it's clear and means something...) ?

You might be recursively invoking the very same method without a termination condition. A report from profiler could be helpful https://github.com/rdp/ruby-prof — Tombart, Nov 19 '12 at 23:04
@vgoff - I was waiting for this one... and you're right. But CVS and me have never been in good terms. — ergo sum cogito, Nov 27 '12 at 16:29
Looks like there is probably a dependency that bundler is unable to resolve. Please check the dependencies once again and run the rake. — Giridhar Bandi, Nov 20 '12 at 05:52
@coolrider - Unless I'm missing something from your point, I get the same error when I run the code without rake (ruby lib/.rb), and I'm quite confident the dependencies are resolved — ergo sum cogito, Dec 01 '12 at 13:04
You did not indicate whether you tried updating the gems in your gemset. Note that Rails 3.2.9 has been released already. — L2G, Dec 10 '12 at 19:57

marcus erronius · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-14T23:09:17.773

Are there other cases that raise stack level too deep exception, besides the classical program-execution-tree-is-too-deep scenario?

Yes. Since the stack is not measured in depth, but in bytes, anything stored on the stack will fill it up sooner:

def recurse(depth=0)
  recurse depth+1
rescue SystemStackError
  depth
end
=> nil
recurse
=> 8717

def recurse(depth=0)
  a,b,c = 1,2,3
  recurse depth+1
rescue SystemStackError
  depth
end
=> nil
recurse
=> 7264

def recurse(depth=0)
  a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m,n,o,p,q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z = *(0..25)
  recurse depth+1
rescue SystemStackError
  depth
end
=> nil
recurse
=> 3187

In this example, a function with only one variable can go several thousand calls deep before failing, and adding three more variables does very little; but adding 26 more variables balloons the stack size to a point where only around 3000 levels are available.

This will, of course depend somewhat on the ruby implementation, and the system it's running on. But I believe it will always hold as a general rule.

However, I still think recursion is likely your problem, since the number of variables required to have this happen at small call chain lengths is immense.

oops. made a mistake that made the call chain appear shorter than before. corrected. — marcus erronius, Dec 14 '12 at 23:11
Many thanks for the explanation, I thought initialized variables were stored somewhere else during execution. You're right (and every one else before you for that matter), I was probably messing a bit too much with core classes redefinitions, hence I could not spot the source of the error. Problem solved (for now) — ergo sum cogito, Jan 25 '13 at 13:07

Ruby stack level too deep exception NOT from recursive infinite loop

Environment :

What I tried unsuccessfully :

Application context :

Resources I used :

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