Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
Christopher Wright wrote:
What exactly is your suggestion?
It seems that you mean that:
delete obj;
should call a destructor but not call delete() or notify the GC that
the memory is free.
That is correct. In particular, an object remains usable after delete.
You're saying that there is a problem, but you're not telling us
what's wrong. Why the hell do you want to destroy an object without
recycling its memory? Why does the inability to do so cause a problem?
The matter has been discussed quite a bit around here and in other
places. I'm not having as much time as I'd want to explain things. In
short, destroying without freeing memory avoids dangling references and
preserves memory safety without impacting on other resources.
Memory safety, sure, but you're deleting the object. It is no longer
valid. You need to add a flag to the object indicating it's invalid, and
everything that uses it needs to check that flag. Instead of a probable
segfault in the current system, you'll get strange errors.
It sounds like a complicated way of supporting a rare use case. Why not
use a library solution? Make an IDisposable interface with methods "void
dispose()" and "bool disposed()"?
If you don't have enough time to explain the reasoning, could you post a
link to a more detailed explanation?
