manipulation of a reference counte

BlitzMax Forums/BlitzMax Programming/manipulation of a reference counte

gman	(Posted 2005) [#1]

is there a way to manually manipulate the reference counter for an object? i would like to store a pointer to an object and have it not released if it the original object is set to null (or goes out of scope) and a pointer to it is still stored.

ie.

Type test
	Method testret:String()
		Return "testing"
	EndMethod
EndType

Local temp1:test=New test
' want to manually increment the counter
Local temp2:test Ptr=Varptr(temp1)

DebugLog(temp1.testret())
DebugLog(temp2[0].testret())
DebugLog("---")
temp1=Null
FlushMem
' boom.  if the counter was incremented i could continue on
DebugLog(temp2[0].testret())

Dreamora

(Posted 2005) [#2]

you can't set an object to null
it is only released if no more reference exist.

so don't use var ptr or create a handling list for the own defined type from which you remove it manually when it shall be deleted :)

ImaginaryHuman

(Posted 2005) [#3]

Doesn't it keep the object automatically if you have a pointer variable pointing to it?

Dreamora

(Posted 2005) [#4]

No it isn't

pointers are unmanaged, only references are managed.

Strict

'test app for ref count on pointers

Type test
	Field bla:String
End Type


Local a:test = New test
Local b:test Ptr

a.bla = "good morning"
b	= Varptr a

Print a.bla
a	= Null
FlushMem

Print b[0].bla
Delay 2000
End

gman	(Posted 2005) [#5]

@Dreamora - thx. thats what i was afraid of... love the garbage collection, but when you want total control its kinda annoying :(