Ruby Timeout::timeout doesn't fire Exception and doesn't return what documented

Question

I have this piece of code:

begin
  complete_results = Timeout.timeout(4) do      
    results = platform.search(artist, album_name)
  end
rescue Timeout::Error
           


        

Answer 1

According to the documentation:

If the block execution terminates before sec seconds has passed, it returns true. If not, it terminates the execution and raises exception (which defaults to Timeout::Error)

This means it only returns true if it's successful, otherwise the variable will not be set (ie it's nil NOT false).

As far as your example goes, it's definitely timing out for me and getting to the rescue part...