On Tue, 10 Dec 2019 14:56:10 -0500 Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfr...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> > It is called when the language IMPLEMENTATION decides to call > it. That time is not specified in the language description/reference > manual. Yes it is: "Note: del x doesn’t directly call x.__del__() — the former decrements the reference count for x by one, and the latter is only called when x’s reference count reaches zero." Plain and simple: When the refcount reaches zero. A few lines down, however, it says: > Any code that is based upon assuming memory reclamation takes > place at any specific time (other than program exit) is erroneous. That is correct, but the decision when to reclaim memory is not made by __del__ but by the memory management subsystem after (for instance, in CPython) calls to PyMem_Free() > Some implementations do not use a reference counter -- they > rely solely upon a periodic mark&sweep garbage collector. cf: Correct again, but the fray in this thread is about when __del__ is called, not when memory reclaim takes place. Two different things. -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
