[Python-Dev] Class destructor (original) (raw)

Nick Maclaren nmm1 at cus.cam.ac.uk
Fri Mar 2 10:53:21 CET 2007

Sorry about a second message, but I mentioned this aspect earlier, and it is semi-independent.

If I want to produce statistics, such as the times spent in various operations, I need a callback when the class is disposed of. Now, that WOULD be inconvenient to use the C object attribute callback, unless I could be sure that would be called while the class structure is still around. That could be resolved by taking a copy, of course, but that is messy.

This also relates to one of my problems with the callback. I am not being called back if the class is still live at program termination; ones that have had their use counts drop to zero do cause a callback, but not ones whose use count is above zero. I am not sure whether this is my error or a feature of the garbage collector.

If the latter, it doesn't matter from the point of view of freeing space, but is assuredly a real pain for producing statistics. I haven't looked into it, as it is not an immediate task.

Regards, Nick Maclaren, University of Cambridge Computing Service, New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QH, England. Email: nmm1 at cam.ac.uk Tel.: +44 1223 334761 Fax: +44 1223 334679

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