[omniORB] strange asymmetric behavior

[Renzo Tomaselli]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Clarke Brunt" <clarke at lsl.co.uk>
To: "Omniorb list" <omniorb-list at omniorb-support.com>
Sent: Monday, July 21, 2003 2:46 PM
Subject: Re: [omniORB] strange asymmetric behavior


> I thought this was just the way it was meant to work. The ref count starts
> at 1 when the servant is constructed with 'new'. If the call to _this()
> activates it (using implicit activation), then there is now a reference to
> it in the POA, and the reference count is therefore increased (now at
least
> 2). It is not the job of xxx_var to do _remove_ref - don't confuse
reference
> counting of object references with reference counting of servants. If you
> want the object to be automatically deleted once it it deactivated, then
you
> need to ensure that you are no longer holding on to the reference gained
in
> 'new', so you need to put an explicit call to _remove_ref() somewhere.
> Obviously this can't be done before the object is activated, otherwise it
> will be deleted before it is activated, but you can do this _remove_ref()
as
> soon as you are certain that the object has been activated (either by the
> first call to _this(), or an explicit activate_object, or whatever).
>
> --
> Clarke Brunt, Principal Software Engineer, Yeoman Navigation
>

True, indeed the overall game works fine in the context of returning _this()
at object building time.
However if such an obj ref. is taken later for other purposes (after
creation/activation/return to the client), I wonder why the server
application must take into account the context to decide whether to make an
explicit call to _remove_ref() or not.
If we take _this() from within any method implementation of the target
servant, then it's ok, while if we do it from within a different context
then we must explicitely call _remove_ref().
Things are even more confused since they depend on the count of outstanding
activations. These are all global factors from the application point of
view, which should call _remove_ref() or not according to the overall
history of such a servant.

Renzo Tomaselli