[Python-Dev] gc.garbage

[Neil Schemenauer]

Tim Peters wrote:
> Neil Schemenauer:
> > Is there some way to prevent people from assigning to certain module
> > variables?
> 
> Not that I know of.  If you're terribly concerned, gc could look up
> "garbage" in its dict on each access.  That's what, e.g., PRINT_ITEM does
> with sys.stdout.  Then it would also have to check that it's a list, etc.

What would happen if it's not a list?  PRINT_ITEM raises RuntimeError.
I suppose the collector could do the same.

> But I'd be keener to see new words spelling out which parts of the gc
> interface are and aren't intended "to work" across releases ...

All of them? :-)  Seriously, there could come a time when GC can no
longer be disabled.  The debugging and threshold stuff is fairly
implementation dependent.  get_referrers() and get_objects() are highly
implementation dependent.  I suppose gc.collect() should always be
available.  Anything else is fair game, IMHO.

Incidentally, I can't say I'm happy with GC as it stands.  It uses too
much memory now that so many objects are tracked.  I had worked on the
idea of a separate heap for GC objects for a while but couldn't figure
out how to make generational collection to work.  As Don Beaudry's sig
says: "so much code, so little time".  :-)

  Neil