Re: [Pyobjc-dev] Headache over hacking an XML editor

[<bb...@ma...>]

On Tuesday, Jan 14, 2003, at 05:00 US/Eastern, Just van Rossum wrote:
>>> PythonItem.__new__ should return cls.alloc().init().release().
>
> Hm, I just discovered .release() returns None. If I do the release()
> separately it works just fine. I still don't understand why
> cls.alloc().init() would result in a retainCount of 2, though. Every
> time I see a retain() or release() call in Python code I can't help but
> think there's something terribly wrong :-(

It has to do with the way the retain/release mechanism works.   In any 
case, you have one -retain for alloc() and one for the assignment in 
python.

I agree that it would be very, very nice NOT to have to ever deal with 
retain/release/autorelease on the Python side of the PyObjC bridge.   
Unfortunately, it appears to be impossible [AFAICT] to automate the 
management of retain/release/autorelease with 100% reliability.  
Anything that makes assumptions regarding retain counts and adjusts the 
count downwards automatically will lead to situations where the app 
blows up.

Ronald and I discussed this at length some time ago-- I believe it was 
before you had become active on the project.   There is actually code 
to maintain the release counts automatically, it is currently commented 
out.    Check the archives for more information....

b.bum