From: Paul Brannan <pbrannan@...>
Date: 2004-03-05T00:58:31+09:00
Subject: Re: destructor?

On Thu, Mar 04, 2004 at 10:04:42PM +0900, Robert Klemme wrote:
> For completeness reasons let me mention that there are finalizers, but
> they don't have the same properties as constructors of C++, the most
> striking difference beeing that you can't control the point in time when
> they are called.  See:
> 
> http://www.rubycentral.com/book/ref_m_objectspace.html#ObjectSpace.define_finalizer

Another less obvious (and very important) difference between C++
destructors and Ruby finalizers:
  - C++ destructors are called as the object is being destructed (member
    variables are still accessible from the destructor), but
  - Ruby finalizers are called after the object is destroyed (so the
    object is no longer around and if the object has resources that need
    to be cleaned up, the finalizer must hold a reference to them).

See also:

  http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?RubyIdioms
  http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?ObjectsNotGetFinalized
  http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?DiscussionOnUsingFinalizers
  http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?RubyFromCpp

Paul