[issue7464] circular reference in HTTPResponse by urllib2

[Kristján Valur Jónsson]

New submission from Kristján Valur Jónsson <kristjan at ccpgames.com>:

in urllib2, you will find these lines:
        # Wrap the HTTPResponse object in socket's file object adapter
        # for Windows.  That adapter calls recv(), so delegate recv()
        # to read().  This weird wrapping allows the returned object to
        # have readline() and readlines() methods.

        # XXX It might be better to extract the read buffering code
        # out of socket._fileobject() and into a base class.

        r.recv = r.read
        fp = socket._fileobject(r, close=True)

This, storing a bound method in the instance, will cause a reference 
cycle that the user knows nothing about.

I propose creating a wrapper instance with a recv() method instead.  Or, 
is there a standard way of storing bound methods on instances?  A 
'weakmethod', perhaps?

----------
components: Library (Lib)
messages: 96175
nosy: krisvale
severity: normal
stage: needs patch
status: open
title: circular reference in HTTPResponse by urllib2
type: resource usage
versions: Python 2.5, Python 2.6

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue7464>
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