digitalmars.D.learn - clear bug?
- Dan Olson (31/31) Sep 04 2011 Using dmd 2.054 on osx:
- Ali =?iso-8859-1?q?=C7ehreli?= (15/56) Sep 05 2011 I think that's by design. A cleared object is in an unusable state. In
- Bernard Helyer (1/1) Sep 05 2011 clear() nulls out the vtable.
- Jonathan M Davis (8/14) Sep 05 2011 Once an object has been cleared, it's invalid. Don't use it. Why would y...
- Andrej Mitrovic (3/5) Sep 05 2011 TDPL, that's why. Things might have changed but how would someone new
- Jonathan M Davis (17/23) Sep 05 2011 I really don't pay much attention to clear, since I rarely use it, and I...
- Dan Olson (7/30) Sep 05 2011 Thanks for the clearification.
- Jonathan M Davis (17/52) Sep 05 2011 I don't really know what the current state of clear is. I know that ther...
- Steven Schveighoffer (24/68) Sep 06 2011 There is a large issue with leaving a class in a "valid state". A class...
Using dmd 2.054 on osx:
Calling a instance method after using clear() on an instance is giving
me a bus error. The instance fields look like they are cleared ok, just
can't safely call a method. I think this used to work after the object
was cleared, and was the reason for clear() over the deprecated delete.
Dan
=-=-=
Sample:
import std.stdio;
class A
{
string name = "none";
void print() {writeln(name);}
}
void main()
{
A a = new A;
a.print(); // none
a.name = "xyzzy";
a.print(); // xyzzy
clear(a);
writeln(a.name); // a is reinit to "none" as expected
a.print(); // bus error?
}
Output:
$ dmd clearbug.d
$ ./clearbug
none
xyzzy
none
Bus error
Sep 04 2011
Ali =?iso-8859-1?q?=C7ehreli?= <acehreli yahoo.com> On Sun, 04 Sep 2011 12:30:58 -0700, Dan Olson wrote:Using dmd 2.054 on osx: Calling a instance method after using clear() on an instance is giving me a bus error."Segmentation fault" on my Ubuntu.The instance fields look like they are cleared ok, just can't safely call a method.I think that's by design. A cleared object is in an unusable state. In fact, I think the implementation actually nulls its vtable pointer.I think this used to work after the object was cleared,Correct. In the earlier design the object would be in a default initialized state, which would call the destructor twice. Not anymore. I think this has changed since the TDPL has been written. (I've just e- mailed Andrei about the broken link to the "shouldwork" section on http:// erdani.com/tdpl/errata/ )and was the reason for clear() over the deprecated delete.delete used to destroy the object give the memory back. clear just calls the destructor. The idea is that the programmer shouldn't have much say on a new'ed object's memory. I think the thought was, if the programmers really cared they could allocate the memory from a private memory pool.DanAli=-=-= Sample: import std.stdio; class A { string name = "none"; void print() {writeln(name);} } void main() { A a = new A; a.print(); // none a.name = "xyzzy"; a.print(); // xyzzy clear(a); writeln(a.name); // a is reinit to "none" as expected a.print(); // bus error? } Output: $ dmd clearbug.d $ ./clearbug none xyzzy none Bus error
Sep 05 2011
On Sunday, September 04, 2011 12:30:58 Dan Olson wrote:Using dmd 2.054 on osx: Calling a instance method after using clear() on an instance is giving me a bus error. The instance fields look like they are cleared ok, just can't safely call a method. I think this used to work after the object was cleared, and was the reason for clear() over the deprecated delete.Once an object has been cleared, it's invalid. Don't use it. Why would you ever try and use an object that had been cleared or deleted? The memory for it has been released! The reason that delete was deprecated was because it was deemed a bad idea in a garbage collected language. It has _nothing_ to do with calling functions on an object after it has been cleared or deleted. - Jonathan M Davis
Sep 05 2011
On 9/6/11, Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmx.com> wrote:Why would you ever try and use an object that had been cleared?TDPL, that's why. Things might have changed but how would someone new to D know that?
Sep 05 2011
On Tuesday, September 06, 2011 02:12:11 Andrej Mitrovic wrote:On 9/6/11, Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmx.com> wrote:I really don't pay much attention to clear, since I rarely use it, and I don't know why you'd ever actually want to try and use an object that you cleared. I do remember discussions about making it clear out the vtable, since you _want_ it to blow up after it's been cleared rather than have an invalid object work on some level. Rereading the relevant section in TDPL though, it does look like it describes a different situation than seems to have been ultimately settled on. So, I guess that I don't know exactly what the situation currently is or what it's supposed to be. But I wouldn't have expected clear to result in a valid object. But clearing out the vtable at least makes it blow up nicely instead of doing who knows what with memory when you try and call functions on an invalid object. So, if the ultimate goal is just to make it memory safe, then both clearing out the vtable and the situation that TDPL describes do the trick, though deleting the vtable actually helps tell you that you've used an object when you shouldn't, whereas TDPL's description results in using the object succeeding, which probably isn't a good thing. - Jonathan M DavisWhy would you ever try and use an object that had been cleared?TDPL, that's why. Things might have changed but how would someone new to D know that?
Sep 05 2011
Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmx.com> writes:On Tuesday, September 06, 2011 02:12:11 Andrej Mitrovic wrote:Thanks for the clearification. It was based on TDPL 6.3.5 that I thought the idea of clear() was to clean up but leave the thing in an initialized state. And because clear() on dynamic arrays and other types seems to be be intended to leave you with a valid and initialized object. Or is that not true? DanOn 9/6/11, Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmx.com> wrote:I really don't pay much attention to clear, since I rarely use it, and I don't know why you'd ever actually want to try and use an object that you cleared. I do remember discussions about making it clear out the vtable, since you _want_ it to blow up after it's been cleared rather than have an invalid object work on some level. Rereading the relevant section in TDPL though, it does look like it describes a different situation than seems to have been ultimately settled on. So, I guess that I don't know exactly what the situation currently is or what it's supposed to be. But I wouldn't have expected clear to result in a valid object. But clearing out the vtable at least makes it blow up nicely instead of doing who knows what with memory when you try and call functions on an invalid object. So, if the ultimate goal is just to make it memory safe, then both clearing out the vtable and the situation that TDPL describes do the trick, though deleting the vtable actually helps tell you that you've used an object when you shouldn't, whereas TDPL's description results in using the object succeeding, which probably isn't a good thing. - Jonathan M DavisWhy would you ever try and use an object that had been cleared?TDPL, that's why. Things might have changed but how would someone new to D know that?
Sep 05 2011
On Monday, September 05, 2011 19:05:56 Dan Olson wrote:Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmx.com> writes:I don't really know what the current state of clear is. I know that there were issues which caused people to want clear to zero-out the vtable on objects, and I believe that that's what it currently does. One of the reasons for clear appears to be to make it memory-safe - and both putting the object in a default state and zeroing out the vtable will do that. It's just that in the one case, you can use it (though you probably shouldn't be and its state isn't very interesting), while in the other, it will blow up if you use it. Dynamic arrays don't have vtables, so there's no way that calling clear on them would zero-out their vtable. I was unaware that you even could call clear on them (I really don't use clear much). I would have guessed that doing so would just call clear on each of its elements and then set the array's length to 0 (and probably its ptr to null), but I don't know. I really don't use clear (it's not generally supposed to be necessary), so I don't know exactly what it's state is or how it differs (if at all) from how it's supposed to work. - Jonathan M DavisOn Tuesday, September 06, 2011 02:12:11 Andrej Mitrovic wrote:Thanks for the clearification. It was based on TDPL 6.3.5 that I thought the idea of clear() was to clean up but leave the thing in an initialized state. And because clear() on dynamic arrays and other types seems to be be intended to leave you with a valid and initialized object. Or is that not true?On 9/6/11, Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmx.com> wrote:I really don't pay much attention to clear, since I rarely use it, and I don't know why you'd ever actually want to try and use an object that you cleared. I do remember discussions about making it clear out the vtable, since you _want_ it to blow up after it's been cleared rather than have an invalid object work on some level. Rereading the relevant section in TDPL though, it does look like it describes a different situation than seems to have been ultimately settled on. So, I guess that I don't know exactly what the situation currently is or what it's supposed to be. But I wouldn't have expected clear to result in a valid object. But clearing out the vtable at least makes it blow up nicely instead of doing who knows what with memory when you try and call functions on an invalid object. So, if the ultimate goal is just to make it memory safe, then both clearing out the vtable and the situation that TDPL describes do the trick, though deleting the vtable actually helps tell you that you've used an object when you shouldn't, whereas TDPL's description results in using the object succeeding, which probably isn't a good thing. - Jonathan M DavisWhy would you ever try and use an object that had been cleared?TDPL, that's why. Things might have changed but how would someone new to D know that?
Sep 05 2011
On Mon, 05 Sep 2011 22:05:56 -0400, Dan Olson <zans.is.for.cans yahoo.com> wrote:Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmx.com> writes:There is a large issue with leaving a class in a "valid state". A class's valid state only occurs after a constructor is called. The same is not true for structs. So we have problems: 1. what if the class has no default constructor? What to use as parameters? 2. if it does have a default constructor, what if that default constructor is costly, or allocates more resources? Didn't we just designate it for destruction? The point of clear is to call the *destructor*, not the constructor, and not deallocate the memory. We could have left the object data in its init state (i.e. before any ctor is called), but that would leave the false impression that it's valid. By clearing out the vtable, we guarantee it's not valid and that any usage will create a huge noticeable error. Basically, if you clear an object, or an array, or anything, you are saying "I no longer need this, GC, collect this when you can" you shouldn't use it again unless you reinitialize it. All dtors are called, and it's invariant may be invalid. The only thing that's left is a placeholder to ensure you cannot corrupt anything else. However, you can reassign it to a newly initialized struct or object, and you can continue to use it after that. -SteveOn Tuesday, September 06, 2011 02:12:11 Andrej Mitrovic wrote:Thanks for the clearification. It was based on TDPL 6.3.5 that I thought the idea of clear() was to clean up but leave the thing in an initialized state. And because clear() on dynamic arrays and other types seems to be be intended to leave you with a valid and initialized object. Or is that not true?On 9/6/11, Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmx.com> wrote:I really don't pay much attention to clear, since I rarely use it, and I don't know why you'd ever actually want to try and use an object that you cleared. I do remember discussions about making it clear out the vtable, since you _want_ it to blow up after it's been cleared rather than have an invalid object work on some level. Rereading the relevant section in TDPL though, it does look like it describes a different situation than seems to have been ultimately settled on. So, I guess that I don't know exactly what the situation currently is or what it's supposed to be. But I wouldn't have expected clear to result in a valid object. But clearing out the vtable at least makes it blow up nicely instead of doing who knows what with memory when you try and call functions on an invalid object. So, if the ultimate goal is just to make it memory safe, then both clearing out the vtable and the situation that TDPL describes do the trick, though deleting the vtable actually helps tell you that you've used an object when you shouldn't, whereas TDPL's description results in using the object succeeding, which probably isn't a good thing. - Jonathan M DavisWhy would you ever try and use an object that had been cleared?TDPL, that's why. Things might have changed but how would someone new to D know that?
Sep 06 2011