[MLton-user] Weak pointer regression test 2

[Ivan Tomac]

On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 2:05 AM, Matthew Fluet <matthew.fluet at gmail.com>wrote:

>
> Well, the MLton.Finalizable structure is supposed to provide exactly
> those guarantees.  It uses MLton.Weak under the hood, but in such a
> way that the object is not globalized.  See
> http://www.mlton.org/MLtonFinalizable for an example.
>
> Indeed, one of the most common "mistakes" made with weak pointers is
> trying to make a "Word32.word MLton.Weak.t" object and believe that it
> can be used to free a C-side allocated resource; this doesn't work
> because the Word32.word is not a heap allocated object (in MLton), and
> so is considered always nulled.
>

Ah that's good to know. I wasn't sure if Finalizable had the same problems
as Weak. Probably should have also mentioned the reason I was using Weak and
not Finalizable was that support for weak pointers is more widespread
between different implementations.
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