Harry Chomsky wrote:

>Damien Doligez wrote:
>  
>
>>On Sunday, June 1, 2003, at 12:50 PM, Maas-Maarten Zeeman wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>The manual explicitly tells that register_global_root should be called
>>>before any valid value is stored in it for the first time, like
>>>Val_unit. See Rule 4 of Interfacing C with Objective Caml in the
>>>manual.
>>>      
>>>
>>I'm afraid Chris is right and the manual is wrong.
>>[...]
>>You must store a valid value before the first allocation that follows
>>register_global_root.
>>    
>>
>
>I think that both Chris and the manual are right.  The manual actually
>instructs the programmer to register a global root v "just before a valid
>value is stored in v for the first time".  Key word: "just".  In other
>words, as Damien says, no allocations are allowed between registration and
>storing a value.
>
>Apparently more than one reader of the manual has missed this detail.  Would
>it be clearer to say "immediately before" instead of "just before"?
>  
>
Maybe it is better to be even more explicit.

Registration of a global variable v is achieved by calling 
register_global_root(&v), with v initialized to Val_unit, before 
allocating and storing a valid value in v for the first time.

On the other hand, some ocaml libraries (which are also examples) which 
use register_global_root, do not always follow this rule. i.e. 
install_signal_handler uses it like this:

  signal_handlers = alloc(NSIG, 0);
  register_global_root(&signal_handlers);

Is this also allowed?

All this also raises a question about the remove_global_root call, are 
there any special precautions I need to take just before or just after 
calling remove_global_root? Or can it be called at any time?

Maas


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