What is Ruby Fiber and how do I use it?

What is Ruby Fiber and how do I use it?

Ruby Fiber is a lightweight concurrency mechanism that allows you to create multiple execution contexts within a single thread. You can use it to manage tasks that can be paused and resumed, making it useful for I/O operations.

Can you show me a simple example of using Fiber?

Sure! Here's a basic example:

fiber = Fiber.new do
  puts 'Fiber started'
  Fiber.yield 'Paused'
  puts 'Fiber resumed'
end

puts fiber.resume  # Output: Fiber started
puts fiber.resume  # Output: Paused

What are the advantages of using Fiber over threads?

Fibers are more lightweight than threads, which means they consume less memory and are easier to manage. They also avoid the overhead of context switching that comes with threads.

Are there any limitations I should be aware of?

Yes, Fibers are not suitable for CPU-bound tasks since they run in a single thread. They are best used for I/O-bound tasks where you can benefit from pausing and resuming execution.