Transport.close()

[Aaron Bentley]

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Andrew Bennetts wrote:
> Aaron Bentley wrote:
> 
>>But if it just decrements a reference count, it seems a bit silly,
>>because Transports are already reference-counted.
> 
> 
> If you're referring to the reference counting CPython does already as part of
> its garbage collection, it's not good enough.

I really only meant that it seems silly.  It may not actually *be* silly.

> There's no way to definitely disconnect a transport that you know you are done
> with, because perhaps there's another reference to it somewhere by accident.

I think this is also true with multiple transports that share a
connection, though not on the same scale.

> If the only way to signal "I'm done with you" to a transport is to drop your
> reference to it, then it's very difficult to write tests about transport
> disconnection behaviour.

Okay, I'm sold on the idea that Python refcounting won't solve it.

> I agree that there's no easy answer (e.g. because multiple transport objects can
> share connections) but the status quo is inadequate.

Well, it seems like dropping another transport's connection is
anti-social.  Maybe it should raise an exception if the connection is
shared?  Because I think if Transport.close() is useful, it's useful
because it acts right away.  So making it just decrement a reference
count seems not useful, and may indicate programmer error.

Aaron
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