[issue6116] frame.f_locals keeps references to things for too long

[Facundo Batista]

Facundo Batista <facundo at taniquetil.com.ar> added the comment:

Making a copy of f_locals values to return a dictionary that doesn't hold references to the locals of the frame is not that simple (for me, at least):

- shallow copy: we'll return always a new dict, with the values being a copy of locals; this is simpler, but what about other objects that are referenced in in those values? For example, in locals exists a list A which holds a reference to object B; the new dict we return will have copy of A, but this copy will still reference B.

- deep copy: we'll return a new dict with a deep copy of all values; this is safer, but what about memory? In any case, how we could do a deep copy here? calling Python's code copy.deepcopy()?

I want to add a fourth option to JP's initial ones:

- have other attribute, something like f_locals_weak that is a list of tuples [(name, value), ...], being the values a weak reference to the real locals.

What do you think?

Regards,

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nosy: +facundobatista

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<http://bugs.python.org/issue6116>
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