Problems with lifecycle of states

["Tom Miles" <Tom@...>]

Hi,

Having just started using Decda to debug my lua project I've noticed
that my threads are never getting garbage collected.  I've searched the
archives about this, and found some vaguely relevant posts, but none
which can address my situation, so apologies if I've missed something.

The states are set up thusly:

state.m_state = lua_newthread(hostLuaState);
lua_pushvalue(hostLuaState, -1);	// Prevent the new thread from
being garbage collected

// Add to our list of registered states, keeping a reference to the
state so we can remove it later on
m_RegisteredStates.push_back(ThreadRef(&state, hostLuaState,
luaL_ref(hostLuaState, LUA_REGISTRYINDEX)));

// Retrieve our lookup table from the global index table
lua_pushstring(m_MainState, "lookup");
lua_gettable(m_MainState, LUA_GLOBALSINDEX);

// Set lookup[state.m_state] = &state
lua_pushlightuserdata(m_MainState, state.m_state);
lua_pushlightuserdata(m_MainState, &state);

lua_settable(m_MainState, -3);
// Remove the table from the stack
lua_pop(m_MainState, 1);


And "freed":

CA_STD::LIST<ThreadRef>::iterator iter =
std::find_if(m_RegisteredStates.begin(), m_RegisteredStates.end(),
Finder(&state));
if (iter != m_RegisteredStates.end())
	luaL_unref((*iter).host, LUA_REGISTRYINDEX, (*iter).ref);

This has been working for ages, but I realised I still used the lookup
table, so I added:

// Remove the state from the lookup table by setting
lookup[state.m_state] = nil
lua_pushstring(m_MainState, "lookup");
lua_gettable(m_MainState, LUA_GLOBALSINDEX);
lua_pushlightuserdata(m_MainState, state.m_state);
lua_pushnil(m_MainState);
lua_settable(m_MainState, -3);

Which has added lots of random lockups and crashes within lua, usually
during garbage colled.  It would seem that if I remove the value from my
lookup table then states are being pulled from under my feet.  Or the
lookup table removal code is corrupting the state somehow.

So, a couple of questions:
1.  What am I doing wrong?
2.  If I use the state as a key in a table, does that count as a
reference to the object as far as the GC is concerned?  If so, how do I
remove a key from the table?

Any help would be very greatfully recieved.

Tom


 
Tom Miles
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