[Caml-list] Garbage collection and a reference counting library

[Richard Jones <rich@annexia.org>]

Dear OCamlers,

I wrote an interface to allow OCaml to call Perl code and libraries.
This interface doesn't pay much attention to collecting memory
correctly.  In particular when a Perl SV (scalar value) is allocated
and passed to us, it will have a Perl internal link count of, say, 1,
and we never decrement that link count, so Perl will never free it.

This wasn't originally an issue because all the programs I was writing
were shortlived (and Perl has enough memory leaks of its own anyway).
But inevitably perhaps, I'm now dealing with a long-running OCaml /
Perl hybrid program, and the lack of proper memory handling has bitten
me on the backside.  So now it looks like I'll need to spend some time
fixing this.

But I'm not really sure how to do this.  At present the code uses the
following subroutine to wrap up Perl SVs (the void *ptr in this case)
in OCaml objects with an ABSTRACT_TAG.  (Note also the XXX comment,
since I'm not actually sure if this code itself is correct).

static value
Val_voidptr (void *ptr)
{
  value rv = alloc (1, Abstract_tag); /* XXX Is this correct? */
  Field(rv, 0) = (value) ptr;
  return rv;
}

#define Voidptr_val(type,rv) ((type *) Field ((rv), 0))

#define Val_sv(sv) (Val_voidptr ((sv)))
#define Sv_val(svv) (Voidptr_val (SV, (svv)))

I imagine that what I should do is to add a finalization function, so
that when 'rv' is garbage collected, I should decrement the Perl link
count, thus forcing Perl to free the associated SV.

Is this safe though?  Can OCaml copy this object, and collect one of
them, thus causing the SV to be deallocated early?  Do I need another
layer of indirection between 'rv' and the SV?

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones. http://www.annexia.org/ http://freshmeat.net/users/rwmj
Merjis Ltd. http://www.merjis.com/ - improving website return on investment
C2LIB is a library of basic Perl/STL-like types for C. Vectors, hashes,
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