[David Rushby] > ... > I understand your explanation and can live with the consequences, but > the atexit docs sure don't prepare the reader for this.
In fact, they don't mention threading.py at all. > They say, "Functions thus registered are automatically executed upon > normal interpreter termination." It seems like sophistry to argue that > "normal interpreter termination" has occurred when there are still > threads other than the main thread running. Well, since atexit callbacks are written in Python, it's absurd on the face of it to imagine that they run after the interpreter has torn itself down. Clearly Python is still running at that point, or they wouldn't get run at all. It's also strained to imagine that threads have nothing to do with shutdown, since the threading docs say "the entire Python program exits when only daemon threads are left". It's not magic that prevents Python from exiting when non-daemon threads are still running. You happened to use the same non-magical hack that threading.py uses to fulfill that promise, and you're seeing consequences of their interaction. In Python as well as in C, atexit only works well when it's got exactly zero or one users <0.1 wink>. You're welcome to suggest text you'd like better, but microscopic examination of details most people will never care about makes for bad docs in a different way. To get a full picture of how CPython's shutdown works, you need to explain all of Py_Finalize() in English, and you need to get agreement on which details are accidents and which are guaranteed. Now it's probably a fact that you couldn't care less about 99.9% of those finalization details: you only care about the one that just bit you. How are you going to beef up the docs in such a way that you would have _found_ the bit you cared about, among the vast bulk of new detail you don't care about? You aren't, so you could settle for suggesting new words that just cover the bit you care about. Give it a try! > Suppose that today I promise to donate my body to science "upon my > death", and tomorrow, I'm diagnosed with a gradual but inexorable > illness that will kill me within ten years. I wouldn't expect to be > strapped down and dissected immediately after hearing the diagnosis, on > the basis that the mere prophecy of my death is tantamount to the death > itself. Next time, quit while you're ahead ;-) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
