Just to follow up here, this isn't specifically a self-reference
problem. I wonder if it's a problem of by-value vs. by-reference
semantics.
I have read up about ctypes and tried to understand in detail what's
going on here but I've now put it aside as it seems too much of a time
sink.
- Julian
On Tue, 2011-08-16 at 14:52 +0300, Daniel Shahaf wrote:
> I'm having trouble getting even 'Array(c_void_p)' to work.
>
> It either outputs nothing and opens a new line with another >>> prompt,
> that has some functionality disabled (eg, prompt history), or complains
> >>> x = Array(c_void_p, [])
> Traceback (most recent call last):
> File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
> TypeError: abstract class
> .
>
>
>
> Julian Foad wrote on Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 17:39:55 +0100:
> > For anyone interested: I'm trying to debug a memory problem in the
> > ctypes-python bindings Array class which models an apr_array_header_t
> > array. I suppose this class may never have worked properly, as it gets
> > exercised very little within the bindings and had no unit test cases
> > until today.
> >
> > Running within its test suite it mostly works, but there appears to be a
> > problem in making a deep copy of, or holding onto a reference to, each
> > element when a new array is initialized.
> >
> > A simple demonstration in the Python interpreter:
> >
> > $ (cd subversion/bindings/ctypes-python/ && python -i
> > test/setup_path.py)
> > >>> from csvn.core import *
> > >>> from csvn.types import Array
> > >>> a1 = Array(c_char_p, ['one'])
> > >>> a1
> > Array(['Array('])
> >
> > The last line should have shown "Array(['one'])", but it printed garbage
> > from the Python interpreter's memory. This is so bad that I wonder if
> > my expectations are wrong.
> >
> > The attached patch contains various changes and additions that I tried
> > unsuccessfully, and it adds tests that all pass (for me) except for the
> > places where they extend an Array with another (or the same) array.
> > Initially I thought the problem was only with self-referencing, because
> > I saw the failures in expressions such as "a1.extend(a1)", but now I am
> > noticing the same effect more widely.
> >
> > Any hints appreciated.
> >
> > - Julian
> >
>
