I stand corrected ! Thank you Abderrahim for this detailed explanation.
Serge. On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 8:56 PM, Abderrahim Kitouni <a.kito...@gmail.com>wrote: > Hello, > > على 21 يون, 2011 م 07:18, كتب Serge Hulne: > > Apparently >> >> string a = "hello"; >> string * b = a; >> >> and : >> >> string a = "hello"; >> unowned string b = a; >> >> appear to be translated by Vala into the exact same C code. >> >> Are these two ways to declare the same thing or is this just a bug which >> happens to work perchance ? >> > > Not exactly the same thing, but the difference is relatively subtle: > unowned means that the variable doesn't "own" the reference, that is, it > doesn't need to be freed when the variable goes out of scope; a pointer, > however, means that vala doesn't do the memory management at all, it's the > *programmer's* responsibility to free the reference (or not) before the > variable goes out of scope (using the delete statement). > > For example, with > unowned string b = a.dup (); > the compiler will report an error, while with > string* b = a.dup (); > it won't, and you need to explicitly > delete b; > after you're done with it. > > Generally, if you're optimizing your program to reduce copying, it's better > to use an unowned reference rather than a pointer. > > HTH, > Abderrahim >
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