Thread::Queue

The Thread::Queue class implements multi-producer, multi-consumer queues. It is especially useful in threaded programming when information must be exchanged safely between multiple threads. The Thread::Queue class implements all the required locking semantics.

The class implements FIFO (first in, first out) type of queue. In a FIFO queue, the first tasks added are the first retrieved.

Example:

queue = Thread::Queue.new

producer = Thread.new do
  5.times do |i|
    sleep rand(i) # simulate expense
    queue << i
    puts "#{i} produced"
  end
end

consumer = Thread.new do
  5.times do |i|
    value = queue.pop
    sleep rand(i/2) # simulate expense
    puts "consumed #{value}"
  end
end

consumer.join