[issue38437] Set GC_DEBUG for debug builds of the interpreter

[Pablo Galindo Salgado]

New submission from Pablo Galindo Salgado <pablogsal at gmail.com>:

While working on bpo-38379 I had to manually set the GC_DEBUG macro to 1 to activate the extra checks that 'validate_list' does. These checks are super useful to make sure all the gc lists used are consistent and in the expected state with the expected masks.

For this reason, I propose to always activate GC_DEBUG for debug builds of the interpreter. It will have a performance impact, but the debugging benefits are substantial.

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messages: 354401
nosy: pablogsal, vstinner
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: Set GC_DEBUG for debug builds of the interpreter
versions: Python 3.7, Python 3.8, Python 3.9

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<https://bugs.python.org/issue38437>
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