[PATCH 00/40] convert virObjects to GObject

[Daniel P. Berrangé]

On Fri, May 15, 2020 at 02:34:01PM +0200, Michal Privoznik wrote:
> On 5/13/20 1:56 PM, Rafael Fonseca wrote:
> > This patch series convert various simple instances of virObject to a
> > GObject equivalent.
> 
> I'm sorry upfront for misusing your patchset and I'm also sorry for bringing
> this up again.
> 
> I think we need to step back and re-evaluate whether this is worth it.
> GObject is horrible and frightening part of GLib. Not only one has to define
> empty functions, but we can't mix virObject and GObject. For instance:
> virObjectRef() called over GObject will corrupt memory.
> 
> Worse, there is no way to check whether your patches converted everything
> (and clearly they did not because I see couple of tests crashing; or maybe
> they did at the time of send but now the code has changed - anyway, point
> proven).
> 
> I started reviewing and stopped at the first patch realizing, I have no idea
> whether you converted every virObjectRef()/virObjectUnref() with
> corresponding glib call.
> 
> I also wanted to write a cocci spatch that might at least identify places
> where that is happening, but apparently my spatch skills are poor.
> 
> Does anybody have an idea how to verify these patches?

My preferred option was to make virObject be a subclass of GObject.

I tried this initially but hit a key problem - g_object_unref is void
and virObjectUnref returns bool - true if any refs still exist. We
rely on that for the virConnectPtr and virFDStream objects.

I couldn't come up with a way to solve that at the time, but I've
just had another think and believe we can solve it using a thread
local set by the finalize. So I'll have another go at doing this
inheritance.

Regards,
Daniel
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