From: Samuel Tesla <samuel@...>
Date: 2003-12-06T12:52:06+09:00
Subject: Re: WeakRef and Object#hash

"Robert Klemme" <bob.news@gmx.net> writes:
> I guess it's by design.  But you can fix this easily by sub classing
> WeakRef

Indeed.  One would think that would work, however.  Look at the
following two code samples.


##
# Sample 1 - test1.rb
##
require 'weakref'

a = WeakRef.new(Object.new) # We'll just never make a strong ref
GC.start
puts a

# Output: 
#         test1.rb:8:in `puts': Illegal Reference - probably recycled 
#         (WeakRef::RefError) from test1.rb:8

## END test1.rb

##
# Sample 2 - test2.rb
##
require 'weakref'

class WeakRef; end

a = WeakRef.new(Object.new) # We'll just never make a strong ref
GC.start
puts a

# Output:
#       <Object:0x402911a0>

## END test2.rb

As you can see, I'm not even adding methods, and it causes the weak
reference to not be recycled by the garbage collector.  Somehow, I
don't think this is intended behavior.  I don't know enough about Ruby
internals to say for sure (although I'm reading the code right now, so
I will soon enough).

Matz?

Cheerio,
Samuel 
(Trying to figure this out, sure is fun)