__init__ vs. __del__

[Randy Turner]

Hi,

I was reading a book on Python-3 programming recently and the book stated that, while there is an __init__ method for initializing objects, there was a __del__ method but the __del__ method is not guaranteed to be called when an object is destroyed.

If there is code in the __init__ method that allocates resources (memory, file opens, etc.), how do these resources get cleaned up when an object is destroyed?  Custom method? 

At the moment, this architecture seems a bit asymmetric if the __del__ method is not called.

Thanks,
Randy



      
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