From: Bill Soudan <bill@soudan.net>
Date: Wed Nov 26, 2003  05:21:50 Europe/London
To: mwh@python.net
Subject: PEP 310/object lifetimes?


Hi Michael,

You mention in PEP-310:

    If a way of controlling object lifetimes explicitly was available,
    the function of the __exit__ hook could be taken over by the
    existing __del__ hook.  Unfortunately, no workable proposal for
    controlling object lifetimes has been made so far.

I've recently been wishing for the ability to control an object's
lifetime in Python.  I also think it would be a more elegant solution
than the __enter__ and __exit__ hooks, for instance, no need to
retro-fit existing classes.

I did a bit of digging, but I couldn't come up with much.  Has it been
discussed before, and if so, do you remember where?  And does your
comment mean it isn't possible given the current implementation?

Thanks,
Bill