Re: [gtk-list] Proxy objects and circular garbage

[Kenneth Albanowski <kjahds kjahds com>]

On Thu, 16 Apr 1998, Michael Beach wrote:

> Salutations all!
> 
> I was going to ask this question when the problem actually bit me, but
> seeing everybody is talking about proxy objects in GtkPerl, I guess now
> may be a good time.
[...]

Yes, what you are describing is quite accurate, and as Owen described, I
got the Perl interface working by relying on the fact that destroy() 
cleans out most normal cycles (due to signal handlers and such), and by
then using a manual GC cycle to clean out the unreferenced proxy/Gtk
pairs. 

Using a weak leak to the proxy object is indeed feasible only if the proxy
object doesn't maintain state: this is reasonable for a simple Perl
interface, but I don't feel it is reasonable for a Perl binding that
allows full class creation from within Perl. (One of my goals with the
binding was to allow you to apply normal Perl programming principles to
widget development and creation, something that's not possible with most
of the other GUI bindings.)

-- 
Kenneth Albanowski (kjahds@kjahds.com, CIS: 70705,126)