Re: Reuse of userdata?

["Adam D. Moss" <adam@...>]

Ando Sonenblick wrote:
> But I'm unclear on the use of the userdata finalizer.  If a userdata has 
> a metatable with a __gc field, I know it gets called but does the GC 
> mechanism then still collect the userdata object after calling it?
>
> I'd ideally like it to NOT collect the userdata object so that I can, 
> say, stash it in some table (so it won't be collected) and then when I 
> need to use a userdata, I can get the stashed one and reset its value, 
> instead of having to allocate a new one.

If you create a new reference to the object within the __gc
callback then the object will safely survive the GC.

--Adam
--
Adam D. Moss   . ,,^^   adam@gimp.org   http://www.foxbox.org/   co:3