Calling A Deconstructor

[John Abel]

Thanks very much that.  Explains a lot.  A lot of the docs I've read, 
mention the __init__, but not much on the __del__.

Thanks again.

John

sismex01 at hebmex.com wrote:

>>From: John Abel [mailto:john.abel at pa.press.net]
>>Sent: Friday, November 15, 2002 7:47 AM
>>
>>Hi,
>>
>>I have a class, with an __init__, and a main function, basically a 
>>wrapper around smtplib.  I wish to add a __del__ to the class.  Two 
>>questions:  Do I need to do it this way?  If so, how do I can 
>>close the instance, so the __del__ is called?  The script will be
>>permanently resident, so I wanted to make sure that I didn't have
>>various connections open to the smtp server.
>>
>>Thanks
>>
>>John
>>
>>    
>>
>
>Hmm... interesting conundrum.
>
>An object is "deleted" automatically when the last reference
>to it disappears (goes out of scope, is deleted explícitly,
>etc).  BUT, you can't force the __del__ method to be called,
>it's an implementation detail that depends on the memory
>management scaffolding in place.
>
>For example.  In CPython, memory management is done via
>reference counting; when the refcount of an object drops
>to zero, it's immediately destructed and deallocated; BUT,
>in Jython, memory management is done via Java's machinery,
>and there is no assurement of *when*, or *if*, the
>destructor is going to be called on the object.
>
>So, for sanity's sake, use a .close() method, or a .done(),
>or something like that, to explicitly close your connection
>to your SMTP server, so you won't have to depend on __del__
>doing it for you.
>
>Python doesn't have the fixed semantics for destructor 
>invocation that C++ has, so you have to take that into account
>when designing your software.
>
>HTH
>
>-gustavo
>
>pd: TGIF!
>  
>

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