timeoutx.rb

#! /usr/bin/env ruby

# you can timeout in ruby even when all signals are blocked by doing the work
# in a child process (relaying the value back up a pipe) and doing the
# timeout-ing in the parent.  of course this only works in POSIX systems
#
 
  require 'timeout'

  def timeoutx(seconds, &block)
    r, w = IO.pipe
    cid = fork
    parent = cid

    if parent
      w.close
      pipe = r
      Timeout.timeout(seconds) do
        result = Marshal.load(pipe.read) rescue nil
      end
    else
      r.close
      pipe = w
      result = block.call()
      pipe.write(Marshal.dump(result)) rescue nil
      exit!
    end
  end

  timeoutx 1 do
    Dir.glob('/**/**')
  end