question on garbage collection for python

[David Stockwell]

Hi,

Does Python leave things in an unknown state?

say I do this in my python code


someFile = open('somefile' , 'r')

data = someFile.read()

someFile = 3

At this point I would hope python would know to destruct the prior reference
to someFile by unallocating the memory (under the hood) and closing the
file.

The questions here are:
If in my code if I forget to close a file, when will the file be closed? Is
it when something goes out of scope? Or will it close when the python
session ends?

If I define a class of somesort, is there a way I can have a destructor
method (like I would under C++ ?)

Thanks in advance,

David

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[Matteo Dell'Amico]

The questions here are:
If in my code if I forget to close a file, when will the file be
closed? Is it when something goes out of scope? Or will it close when
the python session ends?

It isn't specified: it will be collected before the end of the program.
I think that CPython would do it when the refcount goes to 0, whereas in
Jython it will happen "sometimes in the future". Don't count on it, though!

If I define a class of somesort, is there a way I can have a destructor
method (like I would under C++ ?)

The __del__ method.