From: mark hahn <mchahn@...>
Date: 2001-11-29T06:53:55+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:26842] Re: Ref Counting (was KDE or GNOME curiosity question...)

I have run into the db problem myself.  I coded java apps using a jdbc
driver with a 10-connection license.  Connections being left open was a big
problem.

In this case, the java try/finally block worked great and I had no complaint
whatsoever.  I did this in at least 5 different apps.  This worked even when
other code was using the connection but I made sure the objects running the
other code also dissapeared in the finally clause.

I suspect than any properly architected oo code can have this property.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Brannan" <pbrannan@atdesk.com>
To: "ruby-talk ML" <ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org>
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2001 1:32 PM
Subject: [ruby-talk:26837] Re: Ref Counting (was KDE or GNOME curiosity
question...)


> On Thu, 29 Nov 2001, mark hahn wrote:
>
> > I'm thinking now that using scope is the only good way to get quick
> > finalization, with the fopen/block trick being the best example.
>
> The problem with scoping is that it doesn't work if you need to share the
> object among many different other objects.
>
> I've never personally run into this problem, but I know that it can come
> up.  Just recently, in [ruby-talk:25477], there was talk of wanting to
> close a database connection automatically.  To summarize, the author
> wanted to use a finalizer, but he was (fortunately) able to use scoping
> instead.  Matz said he was in favor of explicit disconnection from the
> database.  However, imo, explicit disconnection could be error-prone, but
> it's probably the only reliable way to do this in Ruby for the cases where
> a block will not suffice.
>
> Paul
>