newproxy() tricks

[steve donovan <steve.j.donovan@...>]

Hi all,

I'm reviewing the FAQ for another release and came across this
confident statement:

[[
 But there is an undocumented function, `newproxy` which creates a
little piece of 'userdata'. Here is a useful trick for writing a
module finalization function:

    local finis = debug.setmetatable(newproxy(),{
      __gc = function()
         ...your code goes here...
      end
    }

Then, when the value is finally garbage collected, your code executes
and does any module-specific clean-up.
]]

Nice ... if it were always true.  But I have my doubts, and my feeling
is to drop this paragraph.

Any thoughts?

steve d.