3.4 event system holding objects?

Bill Schwab schwabw at sprynet.com
Sat Feb 8 19:14:27 UTC 2003


John,

==========================
Well, let's not forget that the system was designed for dependents 
to release their dependencies. If one declares *any* kind of 
dependency, one should explicitly release that dependency when 
the object is no longer being observed. This is as true for 
#when:send:to: as it is for #changed:/#update:.
==========================

With respect, I hope you are wrong.  Please don't take offense at 
my contrasting your reply with Ned's (below) - I just want to get to 
the truth.


Ned,

==========================
The 3.4 image includes a number of changesets that attempt to 
make the event system use weak references for registration.
==========================

Well, a properly updated 3.4 image does :)  Thinking back, I realize 
that I got into the mess because of the RB integration.  I was doing 
some work on my MIDI project, and wanted the RB's help to push 
methods and variables up and down as appropriate.  The original 
plan was to file out a change set if things got ugly.  Then all kinds 
of things started appearing on SqueakMap, and I forgot that I was 
living on the edge.



==========================
I don't know what Dolphin has to do with this problem in Squeak, 
though.
==========================

Nothing directly.  Maybe you just had to be there :)



==========================
It's our intention to make this event system as clean and leak-free 
as possible. 
==========================

Great!


==========================
Could you poke around some more to see what's not getting GC'd? 
It could be that the actors are responsible for hanging onto the 
events, and something else is holding on to the actors.
==========================

It looks like I picked a bad place to stop updating.  Past that, 
evaluating

#(aboutToLeaveWorld aboutToEnterWorld) do:[ :each |
	( World valueOfProperty: #actionMap ) removeKey:each.
].

and waiting a while for some gc activity took about 5MB off of my 
image.  That's getting down to a believable size, though still 
noticeably bigger than an older 3.2 image that's lurking on this 
machine; the difference could be the RB and other new goodies.  

There is also at least one more Alice related straggler, and it might 
interest you.  Is StepMessage something that should be 
weakened? 

Bill


Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
bills at anest4.anest.ufl.edu
(352) 846-1285



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