Re: Doubt about free or dont free

[Stefan Kost <ensonic hora-obscura de>]

Gus Koppel wrote:
> While the case of returned "const gchar *"s is rather simple, the real
> problem to me is that the API docs are quite less explicit when it comes
> to more complex objects than just string constants.
>
> For instance, whether and how reference counts of objects related to
> treeviews are changed by what GTK+ functions dealing with them remains
> undocumented.
>
> For instance: whether gtk_tree_view_set_model() changes the reference
> counts of either the newly set or the replaced GtkTreeModel remains as
> unclear as whether gtk_tree_view_get_selection() increases the reference
> count of the selection object or not.
>
> If I remember right the first function changes reference counts while
> the 2nd one doesn't but I may be wrong on this. Frequent explicit checks
> on object reference counts after many GTK+ functions are my only way to
> make sure about this while developping.
>
> I wish the API docs would be added a line for _every_ get- or set-
> function, which explicitly notes whether and how reference counts of
> associated objects are changed by that function.
>  
IMHO especially the Gtk docs lack a lot here. For many methods one has
to look into the sources to find out wheter to unref or free. Problem is
that that docs don't use G_CONST_RETURN. Some examples:
gtk_*_get_model()
gtk_combo_box_get_popup_accessible()
gtk_widget_get_accessible()   (this one is 100% undocumented)

Filed as http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=311536
Please add others you find. 

Similiar problem applies to methods like

gtk_tree_model_get()

These functions should realy document wheter the ref object references returned in their out-params or not 
(they dont).

Stefan