On Jul 13, 2006, at 12:52 PM, Thomas Heller wrote: > IIUC, the buffer object was broken some time ago, but I think it has > been fixed. Can the 'status' of the buffer function be changed? > To quote the next question from the OP: > > "Is buffer safe to use? Is there an alternative?" > > My thinking is that it *is* safe to use, and that there is > no alternative (but imo also no alternative is needed).
I believe it's safe, except when used on an array.array object. However, that's not buffer's fault, but rather a bug in the array class. The buffer interface requires that, as long as a reference to a python object is alive, pointers into its buffer will not become invalidated. Array breaks that guarantee. To fix this, array ought to make a sub-object that this guarantee _does_ hold for. And when it needs more storage, simply make a new sub-object with more storage. Then, the buffer's reference would be to the refcounted sub-object, and thus the associated memory wouldn't go away until the buffer was done with it. James _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
