[fpc-devel] Need patch for bugs : 0011503 / 0009472

[Jonas Maebe]

On 19 Jun 2008, at 14:36, Michael Van Canneyt wrote:

> On Thu, 19 Jun 2008, Boian Mitov wrote:
>
>> Here is a code sniped that sows just one example of the problem:
>>
>> This is a very simple example of how important the order really is:
>> We have even more crucial problems related with this. This is just  
>> a simple
>> one:
>>
>> destructor  TALBasicAudioOut.Destroy();
>> var
>> WriteLock : IOWLockSection;
>>
>> begin
>> WriteLock := FLock.StopLock();
>>
>> FInputPin.Free();
>> FEnablePin.Free();
>> FMasterPumping.Free();
>> WriteLock := NIL;
>> FLock.Free();
>> inherited;
>> end;
>>
>> You can see that the WriteLock  MUST be released before the    
>> FLock.Free();,
>
> Maybe Jonas or Florian can comment on this.

Reference counting only guarantees that
a) an instance will not be freed as long as any references to it exist
b) an instance will be freed automatically after the last reference  
disappears

It does not guarantee/define
a) at which point in the code exactly an instance will be freed
b) the actual mechanism used for reclaiming the memory (a simple free  
when the reference count hits zero, mark and sweep, ...)

It is therefore not a substitute for managing other kinds of resources  
which require predictable freeing points. The above example is  
conceptually identical to several of the examples given in the  
comments to http://bugs.freepascal.org/view.php?id=9472

It's similar to how you cannot use the Finalize method in Java to  
perform resource management, because it will only be called when the  
garbage collector reaps your instance and not necessarily immediately  
when the last reference to an instance is gone.


Jonas