From: Lars Christensen <larsch@...>
Date: 2001-08-12T20:11:22+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:19590] Re: Forced garbage collection

On Sun, 12 Aug 2001, Nat Pryce wrote:

> From: "Lars Christensen" <larsch@cs.auc.dk>
> > I am testing some code that uses ObjectSpace#define_finalizer, but I can
> > not force objects to be garbage collected using GC.start or
> > ObjectSpace.garbace_collect.
>
> I've been having the same problem with Ruby 1.6.4. trying to implement
> a weak hash.  If my unit tests call ObjectSpace.garbage_collect or
> GC.start, finalizers don't get called (I cannot tell if garbage collection
> has
> actually happened or not).  When the program exists, finalizers do get
> called.

I tried adding a finalizer on a object from its own methods, i.e.

  ObjectSpace.define_finalizer(self) {
    puts 'finalized';
  }

The finalizer never gets called :(. Only if i do it externally to the
object, it works:

  ObjectSpace.define_finalizer(someObject) {
    puts 'finalized';
  }

(bug report #163)

Is the GC really that buggy or am I missing something?

-- 
Lars Christensen, larsch@cs.auc.dk