I should mention also, that this is mostly an issue for me on Win7 x64.  It
does behave 'slightly' better on WinXP x86.

(I have the 64-bit version of python installed on Win7 x64 & the 32-bit
version installed on WinXP)

thanks,
Pat.

On 16 April 2012 14:09, Pat Lynch <report@bugs.python.org> wrote:

>
> New submission from Pat Lynch <plynch76@gmail.com>:
>
> If I load a dll in ctypes, then delete that loaded DLL instance, the DLL
> is not unloaded until the script finishes and exits.
>
> I'm trying to write some unit tests in python to exercise that DLL where
> each test case loads a DLL, does some work, then unloads the DLL.
>  Unfortunately the DLL only gets unloaded when the unit tests finish.
>
> I've tried forcing the garbage collector to run to get the DLL to unload.
>  It did nothing...
>
> # load the DLL
> parser_dll = CDLL(dllpath)
>
> # do some work here
>
> # 'unload' the dll (or as close as I can get it to it)
> if (parser_dll):
>    del parser_dll
>
> ----------
> components: ctypes
> messages: 158433
> nosy: plynch76
> priority: normal
> severity: normal
> status: open
> title: Cannot unload dll in ctypes until script exits
> type: enhancement
> versions: Python 2.7
>
> _______________________________________
> Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org>
> <http://bugs.python.org/issue14597>
> _______________________________________
>