Ruby Class object garbage collection

Question

In ruby all classes are objects of class Class. Since classes are also objects, does a Ruby VM follow the same Garbage Collection strategy for class objects? What determines

Answer 1

I have no idea what the answer is, but could you not find out by experimentation? Have a look at the pickaxe. I'm sure that this is a very naive test, and someone can do better, but you get the idea:

puts "program start"    
include ObjectSpace

class SfbdTest
   def initialize(a)
      @a = a
   end
end
define_finalizer(SfbdTest, proc{|id| puts "GC on class"} )

puts "creating instance"
x = SfbdTest.new(1)
define_finalizer(x, proc{|id| puts "GC on instance"} )

puts "zombie-ing instance"
x = nil

puts "forcing GC"
GC.start()

puts "program end"

Produces:

sfbd@thing:~$ ruby -w test.rb
program start
creating instance
zombie-ing instance
forcing GC
program end
GC on instance
GC on class
sfbd@thing:~$ 

Looks like it needs a thread, but unfortunately I'm supposed to be working, sorry...