Thanks for the updated patch. Some comments:
- In the tests, your functions should have return type PyObject* rather than void; you can use Py_RETURN_NONE as a convenient way to return something of the correct type. E.g.:
static PyObject *
test_decref_doesnt_leak(PyObject* self)
{
Py_DECREF(PyLong_FromLong(0));
Py_RETURN_NONE;
}
- Unfortunately, the test above *will* leak: even though your patch fixes Py_XDECREF, Py_DECREF will still evaluate the argument multiple times. So we get, for example:
iwasawa:cpython mdickinson$ ./python.exe -m test -R:: test_capi
[1/1] test_capi
beginning 9 repetitions
123456789
.........
test_capi leaked [1, 1, 1, 1] references, sum=4
1 test failed:
test_capi
- It would be great to have tests for Py_INCREF and Py_XINCREF, too.
- The patch introduces two extra blank lines before Py_CLEAR.
- Not specifically about the patch, but: there's a comment in object.h that reads:
"""
*** WARNING*** The Py_DECREF macro must have a side-effect-free argument
since it may evaluate its argument multiple times. (The alternative
would be to mace it a proper function or assign it to a global temporary
variable first, both of which are slower; and in a multi-threaded
environment the global variable trick is not safe.)
"""
I don't understand why the author of that comment ruled out the possibility of a local temporary variable. Anyone have any ideas? A constraint of some flavours of pre-ANSI C, perhaps?