[Python-Dev] regrtest.py mystery

[Steven Majewski]

On 17 Dec 2001, Michael Hudson wrote:

> barry@zope.com (Barry A. Warsaw) writes:
>
> > >>>>> "GvR" == Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org> writes:
> >
> >     GvR> I haven't been following this discussion.  Can you give a
> >     GvR> clear definition of The Right Thing?
> >
> > I think we need to define the goals of unloading.
>
> Doesn't that make it into a solution in search of a problem?
>
> When is unloading useful?  I'm not being facetious, I've just never
> been hit by the need for it.

Shared libraries in XlispStat support unloading.
But all of the times I've ever used it, I've used it as a 'reload' :
usually while debugging shared libs -- it's handy to keep the
interpreter window running while you fix and recompile a bug and
load it again. The only case I can thing of where I might use it
in production code would also be for a reload, where you might
have several alternate 'plugin' modules.

 When you do an unload, references to objects that were in the
shared library are replaced by references to a stub that generates
an error/exception. ( That stub routine is part of the builtin
dynamic load "module" . ) It doesn't involve traceing all the
references -- the pointers are unchanged, but the object is
changed.

 I have no idea what 'the Right Thing' for Python would be here --
I'm not quite clear on what you're trying to fix. I'm just
volunteering an example.

-- Steve Majewski