Python nrn.Section.cell() changed from no to weak reference. #905
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looks ok to me but I will let @ramcdougal to do review. |
| assert soma.cell() == c | ||
| del c | ||
| assert soma.cell() == None | ||
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Haven't tested, but from the code it looks like soma.name() is still "hello.soma" after the cell is deleted. Is that the "right" behavior?
I'm leaning towards it's the right thing, but I wanted to raise the question.
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I was perplexed by this case also. It represents an earlier misuse of the cell=... argument in that the section is supposed to be referenced by the container and destroyed when the container is destroyed. I suppose it would be possible to invalidate the section in the case where the section lives outside the cell but I don't think that is the correct behavior either.
The alternative of removing that part of the name so that it suddenly appears to be a section at the "top level" I think is inappropriate. Augmenting the cell part of the name so that it indicates the cell has been destroyed I don't think is worthwhile. Another possibility is to generate a warning or an error if this "misuse" happens. As the name of a Python Section is not entirely substantive (merely a label for gui display) I tend toward leaving it as is.
Fixes issue #898
A Side effect of this issue is that reasonable error messages are generated if the cell associated with a Section cannot have a weak reference. E.g. the cell cannot be a string.