[Python-Dev] socket._socketobject.close() doesn't really close sockets

[Guido van Rossum]

Yes, this is because of the (unfortunate) availability of the dup()
operation. Originally, dup() was only available on Unix, where it's
implemented in the kernel at the file descriptor level: when several
file descriptors all share the same underlying socket, the socket
isn't really closed until the last of those file descriptors are
closed, essentially implementing reference counting for file
descriptors. When it was deemed that this (only occasionally useful)
feature be made available on Windows, which doesn't support this
functionality at the socket descriptor level (perhaps it supports it
at some other level, but I wasn't a Windows wizard -- and still am not
:-), I implemented this by implementing the dup() operation in Python
objects, depending on Python's reference counting to close the single
underlying _socket object when the last Python-level socket object is
closed.

So, unfortunately, in IronPython, you'll have to implement reference
counting for socket object somehow.

Sorry,

--Guido

On 6/12/06, Bruce Christensen <t-bruch at microsoft.com> wrote:
> In implementing the IronPython _socket module, I've discovered some
> puzzling behavior in the standard Python socket wrapper module:
> socket._socketobject.close() doesn't actually close sockets; rather, it
> just sets _sock to an instance of _closedsocket and lets the GC clean up
> the real socket. (See socket.py around line 160.)
>
> This works fine with a reference counting GC, but can potentially leave
> sockets hanging around for a long time on platforms (e.g. the CLR) with
> other GC algorithms. It causes most of the socket unit tests to fail on
> IronPython.
>
> Is there a reason for this implementation?
>
> This patch to _socketobject.close() makes socket.py work with
> IronPython:
>
>      def close(self):
> +        if not isinstance(self._sock, _closedsocket):
> +            self._sock.close()
>          self._sock = _closedsocket()
>          self.send = self.recv = self.sendto = self.recvfrom =
> self._sock._dummy
>
> --Bruce
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-- 
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)