does python have useless destructors?

Michael Hudson mwh at python.net
Thu Jun 17 13:04:36 EDT 2004


Donn Cave <donn at u.washington.edu> writes:

> In article <m3k6y6o8cd.fsf at pc150.maths.bris.ac.uk>,
>  Michael Hudson <mwh at python.net> wrote:
> > Donn Cave <donn at u.washington.edu> writes:
> > > In article <m3fz8xozi1.fsf at pc150.maths.bris.ac.uk>,
> > >  Michael Hudson <mwh at python.net> wrote:
> > > > I would urge everyone participating in this thread to read PEP 310,
> > > > the email conversation linked therein and (optional) *understand* it.
> > > 
> > > It seems to be superficially similar to finalization, 
> > 
> > OK, I've found this thread pretty hard to follow.  What is
> > "finalization" in context?
> 
> Operational definition would be `call __del__ or its C equivalent',
> at the effective end of the object's lifetime.

OK.  I claim you can't really have that, and that you don't really
need it anyway.  The idea behind PEP 310 is to acheive the ends of
RAII in C++ by different means.

What else do you want to use __del__ methods for?

Cheers,
mwh

-- 
  Counting lines is probably a good idea if you want to print it out
  and are short on paper, but I fail to see the purpose otherwise.
                                        -- Erik Naggum, comp.lang.lisp



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