Hi all,

I have a doubt, for example; is safe to send the pointer returned by toUTF16z() to a DLL extern function like in this code? Can the GC delete it while the extern function is running? Do I need to keep it in a variable to avoid its deletion?

capCreateCaptureWindowW(toUTF16z(title), 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, hwnd, 0);


And in this code using a cast? Is there any possible problem here?

SendMessageW(hwnd, 0, 0, cast(uint)toUTF16z(file));


Or do I need to code it this way keeping it in "wfile"?

wchar *wfile = toUTF16z(file); SendMessageW(hwnd, 0, 0, cast(uint)wfile);

Thank you, cheers,

Xavi

"Xavi" <____nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message news:fkhvrp$n0s$1@digitalmars.com...
> Hi all,
>
> I have a doubt, for example; is safe to send the pointer returned by
> toUTF16z() to a DLL extern function like in this code?
> Can the GC delete it while the extern function is running? Do I need to
> keep it in a variable to avoid its deletion?
>
> capCreateCaptureWindowW(toUTF16z(title), 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, hwnd, 0);

The D GC is not asynchronous.  It will only collect on allocations. Therefore, as long as this function doesn't allocate any memory *in your app* (and it looks like it's a Windows API, so it doesn't look like that'll happen) no collections can happen.  Even if one did, the reference to the intermediately converted string would be sitting on the stack or in a register and therefore it wouldn't be collected.

> And in this code using a cast? Is there any possible problem here?
>
> SendMessageW(hwnd, 0, 0, cast(uint)toUTF16z(file));

Not unless the GC becomes extremely precise and keeps track of exactly what type every local variable is, which doesn't seem likely any time soon.  In this case, even though it's a uint, it'll still be pointing into the GC heap and won't be collected.

Jarrett Billingsley Wrote:

> "Xavi" <____nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message news:fkhvrp$n0s$1@digitalmars.com...
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I have a doubt, for example; is safe to send the pointer returned by
> > toUTF16z() to a DLL extern function like in this code?
> > Can the GC delete it while the extern function is running? Do I need to
> > keep it in a variable to avoid its deletion?
> >
> > capCreateCaptureWindowW(toUTF16z(title), 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, hwnd, 0);
> 
> The D GC is not asynchronous.  It will only collect on allocations. Therefore, as long as this function doesn't allocate any memory *in your app* (and it looks like it's a Windows API, so it doesn't look like that'll happen) no collections can happen.  Even if one did, the reference to the intermediately converted string would be sitting on the stack or in a register and therefore it wouldn't be collected.
> 
> > And in this code using a cast? Is there any possible problem here?
> >
> > SendMessageW(hwnd, 0, 0, cast(uint)toUTF16z(file));
> 
> Not unless the GC becomes extremely precise and keeps track of exactly what type every local variable is, which doesn't seem likely any time soon.  In this case, even though it's a uint, it'll still be pointing into the GC heap and won't be collected.
> 
> 


Ok, thank you very much ; )

Jarrett Billingsley Wrote:

> "Xavi" <____nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message news:fkhvrp$n0s$1@digitalmars.com...
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I have a doubt, for example; is safe to send the pointer returned by
> > toUTF16z() to a DLL extern function like in this code?
> > Can the GC delete it while the extern function is running? Do I need to
> > keep it in a variable to avoid its deletion?
> >
> > capCreateCaptureWindowW(toUTF16z(title), 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, hwnd, 0);
> 
> The D GC is not asynchronous.  It will only collect on allocations. Therefore, as long as this function doesn't allocate any memory *in your app* (and it looks like it's a Windows API, so it doesn't look like that'll happen) no collections can happen.  Even if one did, the reference to the intermediately converted string would be sitting on the stack or in a register and therefore it wouldn't be collected.
> 
> > And in this code using a cast? Is there any possible problem here?
> >
> > SendMessageW(hwnd, 0, 0, cast(uint)toUTF16z(file));
> 
> Not unless the GC becomes extremely precise and keeps track of exactly what type every local variable is, which doesn't seem likely any time soon.  In this case, even though it's a uint, it'll still be pointing into the GC heap and won't be collected.
> 
> 


Oops!, one more thing; I've read this in the manual of D: "Undefined behavior: Do not store pointers into non-pointer variables using casts and other tricks."

Then in this code
SendMessageW(hwnd, 0, 0, cast(uint)toUTF16z(file));
the GC will not have any reference of the pointer returned by toUTF16z(), right?
I assume that if I run this code in a D multithreaded application another thread could call the GC collecting it while the SendMessageW() is running. Is this correct?

Cheers, Xavi

Reply to Xavi,


> Oops!, one more thing; I've read this in the manual of D: "Undefined
> behavior: Do not store pointers into non-pointer variables using casts
> and other tricks."
> 
> Then in this code
> 
> SendMessageW(hwnd, 0, 0, cast(uint)toUTF16z(file));
> 
> the GC will not have any reference of the pointer returned by
> toUTF16z(), right?
> 
> I assume that if I run this code in a D multithreaded application
> another thread could call the GC collecting it while the
> SendMessageW() is running. Is this correct?
> 
> Cheers, Xavi
> 

I think you would be safe for the time being. As pointed out before the pointer would still be sitting on the stack. The thing about casts might be related to the fact that the GC keeps track of pointer-containing and non-pointer-containing heap allocated blocks. The thing about "other tricks" relates to things like XORing the left and right pointer in a doubly linked list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xor_linked_list). To be pedantic, the GC could be changed so that the cast might make a difference, but I would be surprised if that happened any time soon.

Xavi Wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> I have a doubt, for example; is safe to send the pointer returned by toUTF16z() to a DLL extern function like in this code? Can the GC delete it while the extern function is running? Do I need to keep it in a variable to avoid its deletion?
> 
> capCreateCaptureWindowW(toUTF16z(title), 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, hwnd, 0);
> 
> 
> And in this code using a cast? Is there any possible problem here?
> 
> SendMessageW(hwnd, 0, 0, cast(uint)toUTF16z(file));
> 
> 
> Or do I need to code it this way keeping it in "wfile"?
> 
> wchar *wfile = toUTF16z(file); SendMessageW(hwnd, 0, 0, cast(uint)wfile);
> 
> Thank you, cheers,
> 
> Xavi
> 


Thanks for your replies Jarrett, BCS and bearophile ; )

Cheers, Xavi