Scott Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I have been having trouble with the garbage collector and sockets.
Are you actually getting errors or is this just theoretical? > Unfortunately, google keeps telling me that the problem is the garbage > collector ignoring dead (closed?) sockets instead of removing live > ones. My problem is > > > x.sock=socket.socket(socket.AF_INET,socket.SOCK_STREAM) > do_stuff(x.sock) > > > def do_stuff(sock): > sock_list.append(sock) > > once do_stuff finishes, x.sock disappears, and I can only believe it > is being garbage collected. Can you clarify this? What do you mean by "x.sock" disappears? Are you getting a NameError later when trying to use "x.sock"? x.sock is just a name binding, so it is not really involved in garbage collection (GC applies to the objects to which names are bound). In this case, you need to include much more in the way of code (a fully running, but smallest possible, snippet of code would be best), since the above can be interpreted many ways. At the least, it's very important to include information about the namespace within which those two code snippets run if anyone is likely to be able to give you a good answer. Also, being very precise about the error condition you are experiencing (including actual error messages, tracebacks, etc...) is crucial. Is 'x' referencing a local or global object, and does that socket code occur within a method, a function, or what? Also, in do_stuff, where is sock_list defined? Is it local, global? If, as written, sock_list is a local name to do_stuff, then that binding is going to disappear when do_stuff completes, thus, the list to which it is bound will be destroyed, including all references to objects that the list may contain. So at that point, when you return from do_stuff, the only reference to the socket object will be in x.sock. But if 'x' is also local to the function/method where the call to do_stuff is, the name binding will be removed when the function/method returns, at which point there will be no references to the socket object, and yes, it will be destroyed. But if sock_list is global, and continues to exist when do_stuff completes, then the reference it contains to the socket will keep the socket object alive even if you remove the x.sock binding. -- David -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
