[Python-Dev] Resource leaks warnings

[geremy condra]

On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 9:31 AM, Brett Cannon <brett at python.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 05:42, Antoine Pitrou <solipsis at pitrou.net> wrote:
>>
>> Le mercredi 29 septembre 2010 à 07:27 -0500, Benjamin Peterson a écrit :
>>> >
>>> > I would like to piggy-back on this discussion to suggest further
>>> > warnings (either by default, or switchable).
>>> >
>>> > One feature I've often considered would be to add a warning in FileIO
>>> > and socket dealloc if these objects haven't been closed explicitly. In
>>> > most situations, relying on garbage collection to shutdown OS resources
>>> > (here, file descriptors) is something we like to discourage.
>>> > Furthermore, it can produce real bugs, especially under Windows when
>>> > coupled with refererence cycles created by traceback objects (the
>>> > random test_tarfile failures on the Windows buildbots were a symptom of
>>> > that; their cause would have been obvious with such warnings).
>>> >
>>> > What do you think?
>>>
>>> It seems like a slippery slope. Sometimes you really don't care like
>>> when you're just hacking together a quick script.
>>
>> Isn't the "with" statement appropriate in these cases?
>
> Yes, which is why I suspect people saying they don't bother have been
> programming Python for a while and are not in the habit yet of using a
> 'with' statement. The amount of extra typing compared to inlining a
> call is minimal.
>
>>
>> My assumption is/was that the benefit of warning against leaks in real
>> applications (or even - sigh - the standard library) would outweigh the
>> inconvenience when hacking together a quick script.
>
> Does everyone here run all their code under py-debug? If not then I
> say switch it on when py-debug is on so that we at least detect the
> leaks in the stdlib without having to think about it.
>
>>
>> But if it doesn't, what about enabling it with a command-line switch?
>
> Sure, but I say always turn it on under py-debug.

This would be a big +1 from me.

Geremy Condra