Re: Extending luaproc with userdata in messages

[Peter Odding <peter@...>]

Hi Mark,

> Packing one of these objects into the transit data structure adds the
> pointer to the serialized format but also adds the pointer to a list
> of embedded pointers hanging off the transfer object and increments
> the reference count. Unpacking de-serializes into a proxy in the
> destination (incrementing the reference count as it does so).

My Lua/APR binding uses the same approach to transfer (a selection of 
supported) userdata objects between OS threads / Lua states.

> Destroying the transfer object decrements the reference count for the
> extra pointers hanging off the transfer object. One could get clever
> and try to have the deserialization consume the reference thereby
> avoiding some extra reference count manipulation, but that sort of
> cleverness makes the code more convoluted.

Except for this part which has been bothering me ever since I committed 
the code :-), so thanks for explaining your solution, it seems more 
robust and definitely "cleaner" so I guess I'll adopt something similar.

 - Peter Odding