A weak pointer object with a key and a value. The value has type v.
A weak pointer expresses a relationship between two objects, the
key and the value: if the key is considered to be alive by the
garbage collector, then the value is also alive. A reference from
the value to the key does not keep the key alive.
A weak pointer may also have a finalizer of type IO (); if it does,
then the finalizer will be run at most once, at a time after the key
has become unreachable by the program ("dead"). The storage manager
attempts to run the finalizer(s) for an object soon after the object
dies, but promptness is not guaranteed.
It is not guaranteed that a finalizer will eventually run, and no
attempt is made to run outstanding finalizers when the program exits.
Therefore finalizers should not be relied on to clean up resources -
other methods (eg. exception handlers) should be employed, possibly in
addition to finalisers.
References from the finalizer to the key are treated in the same way
as references from the value to the key: they do not keep the key
alive. A finalizer may therefore ressurrect the key, perhaps by
storing it in the same data structure.
The finalizer, and the relationship between the key and the value,
exist regardless of whether the program keeps a reference to the
Weak object or not.
There may be multiple weak pointers with the same key. In this
case, the finalizers for each of these weak pointers will all be
run in some arbitrary order, or perhaps concurrently, when the key
dies. If the programmer specifies a finalizer that assumes it has
the only reference to an object (for example, a file that it wishes
to close), then the programmer must ensure that there is only one
such finalizer.
If there are no other threads to run, the runtime system will check
for runnable finalizers before declaring the system to be deadlocked.
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