Re: gtk_object_sink in glade_palette_init

[Philippe Bertin <philippe bertin telenet be>]

Thanks for shedding some light on this piece of code. There's some more 
light at the end of my dark GTK-knowledge tunnel.

> AFAIU, after the _new() the box has a special reference to it: the ref
> count is one, but it is marked as "floating"[1]. Now gtk_object_sink()
> decrements the ref coung by one *only* if the object is marked as
> floating and does nothing otherwise. So the net effect of this code is
> to clear the floating flag. See for example
>
>  <http://developer.gnome.org/doc/GGAD/z57.html>
>
> for an explanation.
>
> - ------------
> [1] What this means in terms of practical consequences isn't quite clear
> to me (perhaps some guru cares to give a pointer), but the idea is to
> keep a ref to an yet-unused object you don't want to disappear from
> under you before you've put it safely somewhere. Think of it as "half
> referenced".
>
> Note that putting the object in a container or whatever sinks() it and
> that leads to quite natural code without ref leaks.
>