[Galago-devel] Patch proposal: libnotify and dynamically linked modules

[Holger Berndt]

Hello,

I am experiencing problems with libnotify when used from a dynamically
loaded module. Once notify_init() is called from the module, the program
crashes when the module is unloaded again.

I assume the problem lies in the call to g_atexit() during
notify_init(). The glib reference manual says on g_atexit():
 
,----
| The behaviour of atexit() in the context of dynamically loaded modules is not
| formally specified and varies wildly.
|
| On POSIX systems, calling g_atexit() (or atexit()) in a dynamically loaded
| module which is unloaded before the program terminates might well cause a
| crash at program exit.
`----

(Source:
http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API/2.0/glib/glib-Miscellaneous-Utility-Functions.html#g-atexit)

In fact, I was able to reproduce crashes with simple calls to
g_atexit() in the module, without libnotify being involved at all.

I therefore propose to offer the possibility of initializing libnotify
without g_atexit() being called. A program doing that would of course
have to take care of calling notify_uninit() itself. Please see
attached patch for a possible solution that doesn't break the current
libnotify API. It introduces an additional init function called
notify_init_auto_uninit(), and makes notify_init() a wrapper around it.
(Patch against libnotify version 0.4.2).

This problem is a little surprising, because I assumed my configuration
(a notification plugin for an application, the whole thing
running on Linux) to be a rather typical one. So if any (portable) fixes
or workarounds already exist, I'd appreciate a hint.

Thanks and greetings,
Holger
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