IronLanguages / IronLanguages/ironpython3

__del__ method is not called

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#985 3 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Dominant language
C#
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Description

Steps to Reproduce

If we have a class with __del__ method:

import sys


class Foo:
    def __init__(self, name):
        self.name = name

    def __del__(self):
        sys.stdout.write(self.name + '\n')

Running the following statements with CPython,

def func():
    foo = Foo('Foo 1')
    bar = Foo('Foo 2')
    del bar

func()
foo = Foo('Foo 3')
foo = Foo('Foo 4')

[Expected behavior:]
will get output

Foo 2
Foo 1
Foo 3
Foo 4

[Actual behavior:]
But running with IronPython, there's nothing output.

This blocks #938. FileIO, TextIOWrapper etc classes have finalizer (defined in their base class _IOBase) calling close(). But the finalizer is never called.

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First steps

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  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by running the provided reproduction in CPython and IronPython, then trace how the __del__ method is handled for the sample Foo objects. Check the _IOBase finalizer path mentioned in the issue as well. Done means finalizers run with the expected output and classes such as FileIO and TextIOWrapper can close through their finalizers.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
csharp, python
Domain
backend
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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