[python] How to force deletion of a python object?

I am curious about the details of __del__ in python, when and why it should be used and what it shouldn't be used for. I've learned the hard way that it is not really like what one would naively expected from a destructor, in that it is not the opposite of __new__ / __init__.

class Foo(object):

    def __init__(self):
        self.bar = None

    def open(self):
        if self.bar != 'open':
            print 'opening the bar'
            self.bar = 'open'

    def close(self):
        if self.bar != 'closed':
            print 'closing the bar'
            self.bar = 'close'

    def __del__(self):
        self.close()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    foo = Foo()
    foo.open()
    del foo
    import gc
    gc.collect()

I saw in the documentation that it is not guaranteed __del__() methods are called for objects that still exist when the interpreter exits.

1. how can it be guaranteed that for any Foo instances existing when the interpreter exits, the bar is closed?
2. in the code snippet above does the bar get closed on del foo or on gc.collect()... or neither? if you want finer control of those details (e.g. the bar should be closed when the object is unreferenced) what is the usual way to implement that?
3. when __del__ is called is it guaranteed that __init__ has already been called? what about if the __init__ raised?

Perhaps you are looking for a context manager?

>>> class Foo(object):
...   def __init__(self):
...     self.bar = None
...   def __enter__(self):
...     if self.bar != 'open':
...       print 'opening the bar'
...       self.bar = 'open'
...   def __exit__(self, type_, value, traceback):
...     if self.bar != 'closed':
...       print 'closing the bar', type_, value, traceback
...       self.bar = 'close'
... 
>>> 
>>> with Foo() as f:
...     # oh no something crashes the program
...     sys.exit(0)
... 
opening the bar
closing the bar <type 'exceptions.SystemExit'> 0 <traceback object at 0xb7720cfc>

In general, to make sure something happens no matter what, you use

from exceptions import NameError

try:
    f = open(x)
except ErrorType as e:
    pass # handle the error
finally:
    try:
        f.close()
    except NameError: pass

finally blocks will be run whether or not there is an error in the try block, and whether or not there is an error in any error handling that takes place in except blocks. If you don't handle an exception that is raised, it will still be raised after the finally block is excecuted.

The general way to make sure a file is closed is to use a "context manager".

http://docs.python.org/reference/datamodel.html#context-managers

with open(x) as f:
    # do stuff

This will automatically close f.

For your question #2, bar gets closed on immediately when it's reference count reaches zero, so on del foo if there are no other references.

Objects are NOT created by __init__, they're created by __new__.

http://docs.python.org/reference/datamodel.html#object.new

When you do foo = Foo() two things are actually happening, first a new object is being created, __new__, then it is being initialized, __init__. So there is no way you could possibly call del foo before both those steps have taken place. However, if there is an error in __init__, __del__ will still be called because the object was actually already created in __new__.

Edit: Corrected when deletion happens if a reference count decreases to zero.

1. Add an exit handler that closes all the bars.
2. __del__() gets called when the number of references to an object hits 0 while the VM is still running. This may be caused by the GC.
3. If __init__() raises an exception then the object is assumed to be incomplete and __del__() won't be invoked.