From: Paul Brannan <pbrannan@...>
Date: 2002-07-04T01:19:53+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby implementation Q's

On Thu, Jul 04, 2002 at 12:12:14AM +0900, Peter Hickman wrote:
> Good question.
> 
> If the program requires that dosomethingwiththedata() actually work then 
> i think that the program would have to terminate and thereby free the 
> resources.
> 
> If however it was a more minor error that dosomethingwiththedata() could 
> detect within itself before raising the exception then maybe it could 
> deallocate the resources before raising the exception.
> 
> Again this is just guesswork, someone with more knowledge of the C 
> interface should come in here.

There's a better idiom:

  http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?RubyStyleGuide/UseBlocksForResourceManagement
  http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?RubyIdioms
  http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?ResourceAcquisitionIsInitialization

This works well from inside Ruby and from C (using rb_yield()), but it
does not solve every problem:

  http://www.ruby-talk.org/16958
  http://www.ruby-talk.org/35478

And note that explicit destruction has already been discussed before:
  http://www.ruby-talk.org/34631

Paul