forcing weak purity

[Steven Schveighoffer]

On Wed, 23 May 2012 09:56:58 -0400, deadalnix <deadalnix at gmail.com> wrote:

> Le 23/05/2012 15:52, Steven Schveighoffer a écrit :
>> What if memory is tight, and the only way to get memory for this new
>> allocation is to collect from the main heap? This seems an odd
>> limitation, since strong-pure functions would not be affected by
>> collecting in the main heap *at all*.
>>
>> -Steve
>
> It is up to the GC to collect memory when it is tight. This operation  
> isn't and shouldn't be pure.
>
> It can eventually be called within the allocation mecanism.

Don has said that any collection cycle triggered by a pure function should  
not touch the main heap, only memory allocated from within this function  
(or 'pure function' stack I guess).

This means that a strong-pure function could throw an OutOfMemoryError,  
whereas a non-pure one would run fine.

I'm with Alex on this, this situation is not tenable.

-Steve