[petsc-dev] XXXDestroy() mistaken design in PETSc

[Matthew Knepley]

On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 7:58 PM, Barry Smith <bsmith at mcs.anl.gov> wrote:

>
> On Feb 15, 2011, at 5:26 PM, Matthew Knepley wrote:
>
> > On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 4:47 PM, Barry Smith <bsmith at mcs.anl.gov> wrote:
> >
> >  In MPI one calls MPI_Comm_free(&comm) to allow the MPI implementation to
> set the pointer explicitly to 0 after the object is destroyed.
> >
> >  In Petsc XXXDestroy() does not pass the pointer (because it seemed too
> unnatural to me in 1994) thus not allowing 0ing the pointer.
> >
> >   Was this a bad design decision? Should it be revisited?
> >
> >   Barry
> >
> >  Two use cases
> >
> > 1) error detection when someone tries to reuse a freed object
> >
> > We catch this with other error detection. I do not think we would gain
> much here.
>
>   No really. If I do MatDestroy(mat); MatMult(mat,x,y); then it is possible
> that MatMutl() will crash while looking around inside where mat points. If
> MatDestroy(&mat); zeroed mat then MatMult(mat,x,y) could do the safe test of
> if (!mat) nice error message.


I agree, but the immediate type test at the start of MatMult() has caught
most things for me. I do not consider
double-free a recoverable error, so a SEGV is alright here as well.

   Matt


>
>   Barry
>
> >
> > 2) when removing some objects from a data structure that will be used
> data one currently needs to do
> >
> >  XXXXDestroy(mystruct->something);CHKERRQ(ierr); mystruct->something = 0;
> >
> > instead of the cleaner XXXDestroy(&mystruct->something);CHKERRQ(ierr);
> >
> > True, but again I do not think the win is large.
> >
> >    Matt
> >
> > --
> > What most experimenters take for granted before they begin their
> experiments is infinitely more interesting than any results to which their
> experiments lead.
> > -- Norbert Wiener
>
>


-- 
What most experimenters take for granted before they begin their experiments
is infinitely more interesting than any results to which their experiments
lead.
-- Norbert Wiener
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