[Haskell-cafe] FFI woes!

[Robert Dockins]

Sebastian Sylvan wrote:

> On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 08:56:15 -0500, Robert Dockins
> <robdockins at fastmail.fm> wrote:
> 
> 
>>Return the high level value to the user; when the enclosed
>>ForeignPtr is garbage collected deRefWeak on the weak pointer will
>>return Nothing.  Then the clean-up thread can begin polling the song
>>object to see if it is finished.
> 
> 
> But if the ForeignPtr has been garbage collected, it's too late! The
> sound data is *gone* and the channel can no longer play the sound.

If you look closely at the code I posted, I do something tricky; I form 
a ForeignPtr (without a finalizer) from a Ptr, and then _keep them 
both_.  So, when the ForeignPtr is GCed, I still have the original 
pointer.  I detect the fact that the ForeignPtr is GCed by using a weak 
pointer.  Because of the way I set up my code, I know that when the 
ForeignPtr is gone, my clean-up thread is the only place that I have a 
pointer to the original C object.  So then I start polling the sound 
object to see if it is done playing, and only then free the C object.

> -- play a sample
> samplePlay :: SoundSample -> IO SamplePlayback
> samplePlay sample = do ch <- withForeignPtr sample (fsound_PlaySound (-1))
> 		       let spb = SP ch sample -- SamplePlaybackRaw
>                        mkWeakPtr spb (Just (samplePlaybackFinalizer spb))

Ahh... look.  You are returning a weak pointer!  Those specifically 
allow the referenced object to be garbage collected.  So the only 
references left to your SamplePlaybackRaw are (a) inside a weak pointer 
and (b) inside a finalizer closure.  Such references are NOT considered 
reachable from the root set, and can thus be GCed (I am about 90% sure 
this is true about finalizers).  You have arranged it so that the RTS 
can garbage collect spb, and thus the ch and sample, whenever it likes.