[Python-Dev] interning

[Oren Tirosh]

On Fri, Aug 09, 2002 at 02:03:10PM -0400, Guido van Rossum wrote:
> This means a change in the string object lay-out, which breaks binary
> compatibility (the PyString_AS_STRING macro depends on this).

I think that making interned string mortal is important enough by
itself even without the size reduction.  If binary compatibility is
important enough it's possible to maintain it.

> I don't mind biting this bullet, but it means we have to increment the
> API version, and perhaps the warning about API version mismatches
> should become an error if an extension with too an API version before
> this change is detected.
> 
> Oren, how's that patch coming along? :-)

I've just submitted a new patch for http://python.org/sf/576101

It passes regrtest but causes test_gc to leak 20 objects. 13 from 
test_finalizer_newclass and 7 from test_del_newclass. These leaks
go away if test_saveall is skipped. I've tried earlier versions of 
this patch (which were ok at the time) and they now create this 
leak too.

Some change since the last time I worked on interning must have 
caused this. Either this change reveals a bug in my patch or my patch 
reveals a subtle bug in the GC.

I don't know why it interacts with GC logic because strings are 
non-gc objects. I've tried to untrack the interned dictionary because
it plays dirty tricks with refcounts but it doesn't change the 
symptom.

	Oren