Re: [Caml-list] Custom blocks and finalization

[Markus Mottl <markus.mottl@gmail.com>]

On Fri, May 1, 2009 at 10:18, Dr. Thomas Fischbacher
<t.fischbacher@soton.ac.uk> > Can you provide some more information on
the low level
> details about this issue? E.g. can it arise in non-threaded
> OCaml code?

Yes, if your C-finalizer e.g. needs to remove global roots, this may
not be sound.  I am not totally sure this is actually true in the
current implementation, but at least the documentation clearly
indicates that any interaction with the OCaml-runtime from within
C-finalizers is prohibited.  You may essentially just extract C-values
/ pointers from the OCaml-value to be reclaimed and manipulate those.

> If there is any way to get this resolved by e.g. introducing
> another set of C-level functions within OCaml and asking
> people to switch over to using those, I would consider
> that the most appropriate way forward.

It's my superficial impression that the runtime system could be fixed
such that interactions with it from within C-finalizers and other
custom functions becomes safe, maybe at the expense of some
performance.  E.g. if you register finalizers with the Gc-module from
within OCaml, it seems that the runtime first records all finalizer
functions that need to be called after a collection in a table.  Maybe
something similar can be done for C-finalizers?

Regards,
Markus

-- 
Markus Mottl        http://www.ocaml.info        markus.mottl@gmail.com