On 16/02/2012, at 12:28 PM, Charles Oliver Nutter wrote: > On Sun, Feb 5, 2012 at 12:25 AM, Kurt Stephens = <redmine / ruby-lang.org> wrote: >> True, CRuby Symbols are not collected. However, in general, this is = not required for every implementation of "symbols". There is an open = bug to make CRuby Symbols collectable, but it will require C API = changes. What semantics prevent Ruby Symbols from being collected? >=20 > The only thing that has prevented me from making symbols GCable in > JRuby is the concern that someone might rely on the same symbol having > the same ID forever. That's clearly not the case if you define "forever" to mean "across = program instances". So if they save the object_id of a symbol somewhere, without still = having a reference to the symbol, they'll be broken if "somewhere" persists across = instances, but not if its persistence is only within the same instance. I say do it, and let them whinge. My bet is they'll be too embarrassed = to have done such a grubby thing and won't even complain. Clifford Heath.=