Bug in __del__ function

[Heather Coppersmith]

On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 18:07:50 -0700,
David MacQuigg <dmq at gain.com> wrote:

> The example below is a repeatable test case.  It might be possible to
> simplify this further, but at this point, I haven't a clue as to why
> it works with some sequences of commands, but not others.

> I'm also not able to repeat the problem by putting the commands in the
> file, and just running the file.  Adding the necessary 'print'
> keywords makes the problem go away.  This could be just a problem in
> IDLE, but unless I'm sure of that, I don't want to be using __del__ in
> my programs.

> Is this a bug, or have I misunderstood the use of __del__?

[ code / interaction mostly snipped ]

>>>> del cat1
>>>> cat2
> <__main__.Cat object at 0x00A11F70>
>>>> rc(cat2)
> sys.getrefcount(obj): 5  ### Should be one less.

I'm not sure about that.  The interactive prompt keeps a reference to
the last thing it printed, which in this case was cat2.  Perhaps IDLE
has similar behavior?  That would also explain why adding extra print
statements and/or running from a file makes the problem go away.

Regards,
Heather

-- 
Heather Coppersmith
That's not right; that's not even wrong. -- Wolfgang Pauli