[Python-Dev] Re: [pygtk] How to delete Gtk objects (original) (raw)

Skip Montanaro skip@pobox.com (Skip Montanaro)
Wed, 10 Oct 2001 14:21:21 -0500

(adding python-dev to this conversation because decisions about missing special methods vis a vis PEP 252/253 seem to me to definitely belong in that space.)

>> I think that there may be some problems with extended types and
>> __del__?

Matt> For example:

Matt> class myList(type([])):
Matt>     def __del__(self):
Matt>         print "list dealloced"

Matt> list = myList()
Matt> list.append("foo")
Matt> list.append("bar")
Matt> del list

Matt> never prints list delloced.

My guess (without examining any code) is that del is not implemented for new-style classes. There is this rather cryptic note at the end of PEP 253:

  - open issues:
     ...
     - do we need __coerce__, __del__? 
     ...

which leads me to believe that del would not be called in the current implementation. If people are going to be subclassing more than the traditional builtin types I think del methods will have to be supported.

Skip