seniorRuby
How does Ruby handle concurrency safety in GC marking phase?
Updated May 17, 2026
Short answer
Ruby ensures GC safety using stop-the-world pauses combined with incremental marking.
Deep explanation
CRuby GC uses stop-the-world phases during critical marking transitions to avoid race conditions. Incremental marking splits work into chunks, but write barriers ensure that concurrent mutations are tracked. This hybrid model balances pause time and correctness without full concurrent GC complexity.
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