Re: Reference counting

["Tristan Van Berkom" <tvb gnome org>]

On Dec 23, 2007 2:21 AM, Alwin Leerling <leerling xtra co nz> wrote:

Tristan Van Berkom wrote:
> On Dec 23, 2007 1:20 AM, Alwin Leerling <leerling xtra co nz

> <mailto: leerling xtra co nz>> wrote:
>
>     Hi,
>
>     I'm slightly overwhelmed as to the whole reference counting issue.
>     Could
>     someone explain the though process or logic behind the reference
>     counting or direct me to some information where I can find the
>     correct
>     use. For example, in my code I set up my combo boxes on startup using
>     gtk_list_store_newv and gtk_combo_box_set_model. (Do I need to
>     unref the
>     list_store pointer at this stage?)
>
>
> This is a question of how you interpret your application, think, do you
> want to give the ownership of your data model to your view widget ?
>

This application is purely the gui part of my system. I have another
application that does the actual work, so my gui is totally stateless.
To my knowledge is it advantageous to give the ownership to the view
widget as I don't have to keep variables laying around. If I need
something like the store I can always request it from GTK.

> Will you be having multiple list stores that you might want to keep
> around and alternate the view ?
>

No, I initialise the stores on startup and just add/remove items from them.

> If you unref your list store (passing ownership to the combo box), then
> destroying (freeing) the combo box will take care of finalizing (freeing)
> the list store.
>

Does this mean that I have to unref the store as soon as I have assigned
it to the combo (gtk_combo_box_set_model) ?

Not really, all it means is that you probably /want/ to unref it after passing it 
to the combo, as opposed to simply leeking it or unreffing the store 
yourself when you know its no longer needed.

Cheers,
                  -Tristan