[Python-Dev] Re: More fun with Python shutdown
Phillip J. Eby
pje at telecommunity.com
Tue Nov 11 18:33:34 EST 2003
At 03:41 PM 11/11/03 -0500, Tim Peters wrote:
>[Phillip J. Eby]
> > ...
> > Actually, the funny thing here is that it's unlikely that the cycle a
> > type is in involves its base classes.
>
>Well, all new-style classes are in cycles with bases:
>
> >>> class C(object): pass
>..
> >>> object.__subclasses__()[-1] # so C is reachable from object
><class '__main__.C'>
I thought this was done with weak references.
> >>> C.__mro__ # and object is reachable from C
>(<class '__main__.C'>, <type 'object'>)
> >>>
>
>For that matter, since the first element of the MRO is the class itself, a
Oops. I forgot about that.
>A complication in all this is that Python's cyclic gc never calls tp_dealloc
>or tp_free directly! The only cleanup slot it calls directly is tp_clear.
>Deallocations still occur only as side effects of refcounts falling to 0, as
>tp_clear actions break cycles (and execute Py_DECREFs along the way).
>
>This protects against a class's tp_dealloc (but not tp_clear) getting called
>while instances still exist, even if they're all in one cycle. But "still
>exist" gets fuzzy then.
Hm. So what if tp_clear didn't mess with the MRO, except to decref its
self-reference in the MRO? tp_dealloc would have to decref the MRO tuple
then, and deal with the off-by-one refcount for the type that would result
from the tuple's deallocation. Could that work?
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