Re: Finalization and Garbage Collection: a hole in the RM?

[mazzanti@iei.pi.cnr.it (Franco Mazzanti)]

> >I could not find are rule describing what could/should happen when an
> >exception is raised by a Finalization routine called by the garbage
> >collector. ...


> One possible answer is that the exceptions get lost, as for a task.
> This makes debugging rather painful.
> ...

> Another possibility is to kill the whole program, trap into the
> debugger, record the error in an error log, or whatever is appropriate
> for catastrophic failures on your system.
> ...

> 
> Another possibility is to not collect finalizable objects.  
> ...

> In any case, the design of Ada 95 does not answer your question, so I'd
> say it's fair for the gc implementer to design a solution to the
> problem.  There's always the cop-out of letting the user choose from
> among several bad options.  ;-)
> 
> - Bob
> 

Well, I understand that a clean integration of garbage collection in Ada
requires the solution of several difficulties.

What is really scaring me, are not just the problems inherent to GC,
but the fact that there are hidden "holes" in the language definition,
and that the effect of a program falling in this "holes" is completely
undefined.

Are there any other holes like this one are hiding there?

I am trying to write a roadmap to erroneous executions and other 
unpredictabilities in Ada95, so for me it would be important to find all
the possible issues of this kind.

Anybody knows?


Franco Mazzanti

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   Dr. Franco Mazzanti
   Istituto di Elaborazione della Informazione
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   e-mail: mazzanti@iei.pi.cnr.it
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