How to cancel evaluating a required Ruby file?

Question

file1 requires file2, and I want to be able to cancel evaluating file2 under certain conditions without exiting the whole process.

# file1.rb
  puts "In file 1"
  require 'file2'
  puts "Back in file 1"

# file2.rb
  puts "In file 2"
  # return if some_conditional
  puts "Still in file 2"

When running file1, the output I want to see is:

In file 1
In file 2
Back in file 1

The goal is for Still in file 2 to never print, while Back in file 1 does print. Is there anything I can do in file2 to make this possible?

I can't use exit/exit!/abort here because Back in file 1 will never print. I could use raise/fail, but to do that I would have to change file1 and rescue the failed require. I'm hoping to find a way that doesn't involve altering file1.

UPDATE:

A "top-level return" feature has been added.

Answer 1

Lines below __END__ will not be executed.

# file2.rb
puts "In file 2" 
__END__
puts "Still in file 2" # Never gets called

Answer 2

Is using a method possible ? It will still parse the method but won't get executed. Something like :

#file1.rb
  puts "In file 1"
  require 'file2'
  puts "Back in file 1"
  a_method

#file2.rb
  puts "In file 2"
  # <= A

  def a_method
    puts "Still in file 2"
  end

Answer 3

I don't know of any official method for breaking out of required files, especially as there are several require methods (e.g., bundler monkey patches require)

The best solution I could come up with was using rubys throw-catch control flow. I'm not sure conditional you're using to determine if execute should return early, but this should be able to cope with most situations

# file1.rb
puts "In file 1" 
catch(:done) do
    require 'file2' end
puts "Back in file 1"

# file2.rb
puts "In file 2" 
throw :done
puts "Still in file 2" # Never gets called

Answer 4

UPDATE:

A "top-level return" feature has been added.

ORIGINAL:

Commenter matt pointed out that Feature 4840, which would do exactly what I'm asking about, has been in discussion since June 2011. Further, the feature was still being discussed as late as November 2015 in core team meetings regarding new Ruby features.

There are a lot of difficulties involved in designing a feature like this; for a list of the pros and cons, I highly suggest checking out the discussions.

The proposed feature would allow exiting the required file while using any of the the following top-level statements:

if condition
  return
end

while condition
  # ...
  return
end

begin
  # ...
  return
rescue
  # ...
  return
ensure
  # ...
  return
end

And it would not exit the required file in the following statements:

class Foo
  return # LocalJumpError
end

def foo
  return # returns from method, not from required file
end

proc do
  return # LocalJumpError
end

x = -> { return } # returns as from lambda, not from required file

Since the feature remains unimplemented, I have awarded the bounty to steenslag for successfully solving the problem (as originally written) to the letter, if not the spirit.