Jonas Maebe wrote:
Adriaan van Os wrote on Wed, 17 Aug 2016:
Either I am looking wrong (and missing the point) or the text at
<http://www.freepascal.org/docs-html/ref/refse91.html> (a follow-up on
<http://bugs.freepascal.org/view.php?id=26874>) is incorrect.
Doesn't the call to DoIt1(y,7) in procedure Test3 cause the reference
count to be increased (from 0 to 1) and then decreased (from 1 to 0
and thus disposed) ? And doesn't DoIt1 use value parameters ?
Yes.
Therefore, doesn't the comment on the const case (on the top of the
page) belong to the value-parameter (aka "nothing") case ?
It actually applies to both.
I would say, If const parameters, like var parameters, do nothing,
there is no reference count decrease, therefore no dispose of classes
(implementing an interface) even when the reference count is 0 ?
It's about when you pass reference counted non-lvalues to parameters,
e.g. the result of a function or the expression "ClassInstance as
InterfaceType". In that case, the compiler will create a temp (on the
caller side) to store that function/expression result, which results the
reference count of the interface instance to be increased. After the
function call to which this interface instance has been passed as
parameter returns, the reference count will be decreased again because
the temp gets freed. If the reference count becomes 0 at that point, the
instance gets freed too. As a result, in this case even with a "const"
parameter you still have an interface instance that gets freed at some
point after the call (since otherwise there would be a memory/reference
count leak).
Passing a class instance directly to a const interface parameter does
not result in the creation of a temp and hence does not result in
reference count increases/decreases. In case of a value parameter, there
is reference count on the callee side regardless of what you passed in.
Thanks for the clarification. I suggest the doc page
<http://www.freepascal.org/docs-html/ref/refse91.html> to be changed accordingly.
Regards,
Adriaan van Os
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