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I asked a similar question about implicit interface variables not so long ago.

The source of this question was a bug in my code due to me not being aware of the existence of an implicit interface variable created by the compiler. This variable was finalized when the procedure that owned it finished. This in turn caused a bug due to the lifetime of the variable being longer than I had anticipated.

Now, I have a simple project to illustrate some interesting behaviour from the compiler:

program ImplicitInterfaceLocals;



function Create: IInterface;
  Result := TInterfacedObject.Create;

procedure StoreToLocal;
  I: IInterface;
  I := Create;

procedure StoreViaPointerToLocal;
  I: IInterface;
  P: ^IInterface;
  P := @I;
  P^ := Create;


StoreToLocal is compiled just as you would imagine. The local variable I, the function's result, is passed as an implicit var parameter to Create. The tidy up for StoreToLocal results in a single call to IntfClear. No surprises there.

However, StoreViaPointerToLocal is treated differently. The compiler creates an implicit local variable which it passes to Create. When Create returns, the assignment to P^ is performed. This leaves the routine with two local variables holding references to the interface. The tidy up for StoreViaPointerToLocal results in two calls to IntfClear.

The compiled code for StoreViaPointerToLocal is like this:

ImplicitInterfaceLocals.dpr.24: begin
00435C50 55               push ebp
00435C51 8BEC             mov ebp,esp
00435C53 6A00             push $00
00435C55 6A00             push $00
00435C57 6A00             push $00
00435C59 33C0             xor eax,eax
00435C5B 55               push ebp
00435C5C 689E5C4300       push $00435c9e
00435C61 64FF30           push dword ptr fs:[eax]
00435C64 648920           mov fs:[eax],esp
ImplicitInterfaceLocals.dpr.25: P := @I;
00435C67 8D45FC           lea eax,[ebp-$04]
00435C6A 8945F8           mov [ebp-$08],eax
ImplicitInterfaceLocals.dpr.26: P^ := Create;
00435C6D 8D45F4           lea eax,[ebp-$0c]
00435C70 E873FFFFFF       call Create
00435C75 8B55F4           mov edx,[ebp-$0c]
00435C78 8B45F8           mov eax,[ebp-$08]
00435C7B E81032FDFF       call @IntfCopy
ImplicitInterfaceLocals.dpr.27: end;
00435C80 33C0             xor eax,eax
00435C82 5A               pop edx
00435C83 59               pop ecx
00435C84 59               pop ecx
00435C85 648910           mov fs:[eax],edx
00435C88 68A55C4300       push $00435ca5
00435C8D 8D45F4           lea eax,[ebp-$0c]
00435C90 E8E331FDFF       call @IntfClear
00435C95 8D45FC           lea eax,[ebp-$04]
00435C98 E8DB31FDFF       call @IntfClear
00435C9D C3               ret 

I can guess as to why the compiler is doing this. When it can prove that assigning to the result variable will not raise an exception (i.e. if the variable is a local) then it uses the result variable directly. Otherwise it uses an implicit local and copies the interface once the function has returned thus ensuring that we don't leak the reference in case of an exception.

But I cannot find any statement of this in the documentation. It matters because interface lifetime is important and as a programmer you need to be able to influence it on occasion.

So, does anybody know if there is any documentation of this behaviour? If not does anyone have any more knowledge of it? How are instance fields handled, I have not checked that yet. Of course I could try it all out for myself but I'm looking for a more formal statement and always prefer to avoid relying on implementation detail worked out by trial and error.

Update 1

To answer Remy's question is mattered to me when I needed to finalize the object behind the interface before carrying out another finalization.

    PyObject := CreatePythonObject;
      //do stuff with PyObject

As written like this it is fine. But in the real code I had a second implicit local which was finalized after the GIL was released and that bombed. I solved the problem by extracting the code inside the Acquire/Release GIL into a separate method and thus narrowed the scope of the interface variable.

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Don't know why this was downvoted, other than that the question is really complex. Upvoted for being way over my head. I do know that exactly this bit of arcanum resulted in some subtle reference counting bugs in an app I worked on a year ago. One of our best geeks spent hours figuring it out. In the end we worked around it but never understood how the compiler was intended to work. –  Warren P Oct 13 '11 at 19:29
@Serg The compiler did its reference counting perfectly. The problem was that there was an extra variable holding a reference that I could not see. What I want to know is what provokes the compiler to take such an extra, hidden, reference. –  David Heffernan Oct 13 '11 at 21:33
I understand you, but a good practice is to write code that does not depend on such extra variables. Let the compiler create these variables as much as it likes, a solid code should not depend on it. –  user246408 Oct 13 '11 at 21:38
Another example when this is happening: procedure StoreViaAbsoluteToLocal; var I: IInterface; I2: IInterface absolute I; begin I2 := Create; end; –  TOndrej Oct 14 '11 at 10:38
I'm tempted to call this a compiler bug...temporaries should be cleared after they go out of scope, which should be the end of the assignment (and not the end of the function). Not doing so produces subtle errors as you have discovered. –  nneonneo Sep 17 '12 at 6:08

1 Answer 1

up vote 9 down vote accepted

If there is any documentation of this behavior, it will probably be in the area of compiler production of temporary variables to hold intermediate results when passing function results as parameters. Consider this code:

procedure UseInterface(foo: IInterface);

procedure Test()

The compiler has to create an implicit temp variable to hold the result of Create as it is passed into UseInterface, to make sure that the interface has a lifetime >= the lifetime of the UseInterface call. That implicit temp variable will be disposed at the end of the procedure that owns it, in this case at the end of the Test() procedure.

It's possible that your pointer assignment case may fall into the same bucket as passing intermediate interface values as function parameters, since the compiler can't "see" where the value is going.

I recall there have been a few bugs in this area over the years. Long ago (D3? D4?), the compiler didn't reference count the intermediate value at all. It worked most of the time, but got into trouble in parameter alias situations. Once that was addressed there was a follow up regarding const params, I believe. There was always a desire to move disposal of the intermediate value interface up to as soon as possible after the statement in which it was needed, but I don't think that ever got implemented in the Win32 optimizer because the compiler just wasn't set up for handling disposal at statement or block granularity.

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protected by Brad Larson Oct 30 '13 at 15:54


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