Torsten Bronger wrote: > Peter Hansen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >>What's your use case for del? > > Every instance represents a "session" to a measurement instrument. > After the instance is deleted, the session should be closed to free > resources.
You mean like GPIB devices? We've written a lot of software that talks to instruments, as well as pumps, motors, and sensors of all kinds. I haven't even needed to "free resources", other than by closing a serial port, for example. Such simple operations don't require the use of __del__ and can easily be done with simple .close() type calls as the application shuts itself down or finishes a test sequence or other operation. Use of __del__ is, in my opinion, a bit of a crutch (meaning it seems to make life easier, but then you start relying on it and find it hard to do without). Given that it isn't really reliable in non-trivial situations, I'd recommend pretending __del__ does not exist and restructuring your system to close these sessions explicitly, under your direct control, at the appropriate point. This has worked very well for us so far. -Peter -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
