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Mon Jun 1 17:33:19 CEST 2015 · https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2015-June/140423.html

On Mon, 1 Jun 2015 16:38:35 +0200
Petr Viktorin <encukou at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
> The new test_importlib.extension.test_loader is currently leaking
> references, (issue24268). There is a simple hack to stop this, but I'm
> inclined to not apply quick hacks and rather dig into the root cause.
> (It's a test module, the refleaks are relatively harmless.)
> 
> The tests are based directly on the "xxlimited" example,
> xxlimited.Xxo, which exhibits the same bug -- it's just not tested.
> It's is caused by a combination of a few factors, but I'm not sure
> what's a bug and what's just undocumented behavior, so I'm asking for
> input to put me on the right track.

Yes, the issue is really nasty. There are several situations to take
into account:
- derived heap type inherits from base heap type, both have custom
  deallocs
- derived heap type inherits from base heap type, only one has
  a custom dealloc
- derived heap type inherits from Python-defined class (the latter
  having subtype_dealloc)
- derived heap type inherits from static type
- ...

It is unreasonable to expect developers of C extensions come up with
the correct incantation (and ideally, they shouldn't have to think
about it at all).

> The nice way out would be taking advantage of PEP 442: xxlimited.Xxo
> can ditch tp_dealloc in favor of tp_traverse and tp_finalize (the
> former of which it needs anyway to behave correctly). Unfortunately,
> tp_finalize is not available in the stable ABI (issue24345). I think
> it should be added; is it too late for 3.5?

Well, but.... the stable ABI is supposed to be a subset of the API
that's safe to program against, regardless of the Python version (at
least from the point where the stable ABI was introduced). What happens
if you define a Py_tp_finalize and run your C extension type on a
pre-3.5 version? Do you get an error at definition time? A resource
leak? A crash?

I don't get why Benjamin committed the change so quick.

Regards

Antoine.

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[Python-Dev] Avoiding reference leaks in heap types with custom tp_dealloc