garbage collection - Checkpoint and restore the heap in Ruby -

ruby's callcc captures current continuation, can subsequently called restore control, not data. capture current continuation along current image of memory.

it seems me capturing heap shouldn't difficult; can rely on objectspace::each_object , objectspace::dump_all, or marshal.dump, or object.clone. however, don't see straightforward way restore heap. ideally, traverse object_id -> object map, restoring old image of object every object_id (and re-adding object_id if corresponding object had been gc'd). unsurprisingly, there no ruby-level api lets me this. wondering if there low-level hooks ruby's gc can use.

any appreciated, including suggestions alternative approaches.

to answer own question, process.fork can used more-or-less achieve effect of heap checkpointing , restoration. whenever have checkpoint heap, fork new process , let child continue. parent process contains checkpointed heap:

def checkpoint   if process.fork.nil? # if child, resume execution     return   else # if parent, wait child exit.     process.wait    end   return # parent resumes execution state in before forking.   end 

when state has restored, child process exits:

def restore   process.exit end 

i using solution, , haven't encountered problems far. edit answer if find in future.