On Nov 14, 2003, at 5:42, Damien Doligez wrote:

>> 	Garbage collecting the subprocesses and file descriptors would make 
>> this a bit more straightforward.
>
> The problem with this approach is that the "close" and "wait"
> system calls have side effects.  I don't like the idea of a GC
> that has side effects other than the memory size of the program
> (and finalisation functions, of course).

	But what is the purpose of a finalization function that doesn't have a 
side effect?  They are defined as (;a -> unit) which implies to me that 
the only purpose of the thing is to produce a side effect.

	close() seems to be conceptually the same finalization as free() to 
me.  It releases a system resource back to the process that would 
otherwise be unavailable forever.

-- 
Dustin Sallings

-------------------
To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr
Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/
Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners