__del__ problem - more details provided. still stumped though.

Gordon McMillan gmcm at hypernet.com
Wed Apr 19 10:55:05 EDT 2000


Warren Postma wrote:
[vast snippery]
> class DBPtr :
>     def __init__(self,this):
>         self.this = this
>         self.thisown = 0
>     def __del__(self):
>         if self.thisown == 1 :
>             dbc.delete_DB(self.this)  # appears some exceptions being raised
> here.
>     # rest of class DBPtr snipped

Patch that to 
  def __del__(self, dbc=dbc):
     ...etc.

The problem is that the Py_Finalize logic has a real hard time 
knowing in what order to zap things. By the time this __del__ 
runs, the dbc module has already been zapped. Squirrelling 
away a reference in the method definition will ensure it's 
existence.  In general, a __del__ method (or anything called 
from a __del__ method) cannot rely on any references outside 
the object unless it uses this trick.

> That still leaves the two messages regarding unknown attribute named "time".
> the only reference to time in my modules is calls to time.time() in a
> function that could be called in the destructor of the table objects, while
> updating the table headers one last time before closing the file. 

Same thing.

- Gordon




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