Re: [Caml-list] GC and file descriptors

[Max Kirillov <max630@mail.ru>]

On Fri, Nov 14, 2003 at 11:24:21PM +0300, Dmitry Bely wrote:
> Christophe Raffalli <Christophe.Raffalli@univ-savoie.fr> writes:
> 
>>>>     Garbage collecting the subprocesses and file descriptors would
>>>> make this a bit more straightforward.
>>> The problem with this approach is that the "close" and "wait"
>>> system calls have side effects.  I don't like the idea of a GC
>>> that has side effects other than the memory size of the program
>>> (and finalisation functions, of course).
>>
>> Why ? Could you elaborate ?
> 
> close() can fail (generate an exception). How are you going to handle it in

According to 'man 2 close', it cannot.

Nearly the same is true for any resource deallocation.
The only exception I can recall is wait -- but, when you don't need the
exit status (and you surely don't, once you leave it to GC), you can
ignore all the errors.

Of course here might be a questions wish unflushed data. But still, if
you don't flush the writing channel before finishing a function, you
probably don't need you output to be delivered in any case.

> the garbage collector? On the contrary, the memory deallocaton always
> succeeds.
> - Dmitry Bely
> 
> 
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-- 
Max

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