[Python-Dev] Big trouble in CVS Python (original) (raw)

Aahz aahz@pythoncraft.com
Sun, 13 Apr 2003 19:21:39 -0400

On Sun, Apr 13, 2003, Tim Peters wrote:

What I still don't grasp is why a debug run never failed with a negative-refcount error. Attaching the prematurely-freed float to the float free list doesn't change its refcount field -- that remains 0. So if it was still in the free list when the original coconsts got reclaimed, we should have had a negrefcnt death. OTOH, if the memory was handed out to another float, then when the original coconsts got reclaimed it would have knocked that float's refcount down too, which should lead to a negrefcnt death later. Maybe coconsts never did get reclaimed? I'm not clear on how much we let slide at shutdown.

Maybe debug runs should walk through "the universe" to make sure it's in a valid state before exiting? I remember being confused that gc doesn't run when Python exits.

Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/

This is Python. We don't care much about theory, except where it intersects with useful practice. --Aahz, c.l.py, 2/4/2002