Re: [Vala] [ANNOUNCE] Vala 0.5.6 - Compiler for the GObject type system

[Jürg Billeter <j bitron ch>]

On Sun, 2009-01-18 at 11:34 -0500, Yu Feng wrote:
> Nice job!
>
> I notice all 'weak' return values in bindings are now replaced with
> 'unowned'.
>
> Has the difference between these two been documented anywhere yet?

The change has been announced in a thread[1] on the mailing list. The
compiler does not yet distinguish between `weak' and `unowned', however,
future versions will use g_object_*_weak_pointer for `weak' object
references, and you will need to change your code to `unowned' in these
cases if you do not want to use weak pointers. The change is not
recommended in most cases, though.

`weak' as used in return types has been changed to `unowned' for
consistent terminology, as we will never be able to use real weak
pointers for return values. `weak' still works for return types, though,
and I expect to keep it like that for the near future. However, it might
get deprecated at some point.

Jürg

[1] http://mail.gnome.org/archives/vala-list/2008-December/msg00142.html