I filed a ticket and was told that this is documented in perlxs.

This is quite useful as it usually improves readability. While this works fine for an SV *, it's unfortunately not as easy to have AV * or HV * as a return value. You should be able to write:

 AV *
 array()
     CODE:
         RETVAL = newAV();
         /* do something with RETVAL */
     OUTPUT:
         RETVAL
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But due to an unfixable bug (fixing it would break lots of existing CPAN modules) in the typemap file, the reference count of the AV * is not properly decremented. Thus, the above XSUB would leak memory whenever it is being called. The same problem exists for HV *.

According to the example in the Inline C Cookbook, the correct way to return an AV* is:

newRV_noinc( (SV*)array = newAV() )
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Which kind of makes sense given the info ikegami posted above.

Which kind of makes sense given the info ikegami posted above

Yes, it does make sense - yet it's not what I naively expected.
I expected that you'd just return the AV* ... but if that can bugger up the refcount, and there's no way of twiddling it, then one certainly needs to be careful whenever one declares a function as returning AV*.

Still, it was probably a silly question on my part.
If there was a way to twiddle that refcount in a returning AV*, then I would think ikegami would have mentioned it.

Cheers,
Rob

yet it's not what I naively expected.

I have similar reservations about the Object Oriented Inline example in the cookbook:

SV* new(char* class, char* name, char* rank, long serial) {
    Soldier* soldier;
    SV*      obj_ref = newSViv(0);
    SV*      obj = newSVrv(obj_ref, class);
    
    New(42, soldier, 1, Soldier);
    soldier->name = savepv(name);
    soldier->rank = savepv(rank);
    soldier->serial = serial;
        
    sv_setiv(obj, (IV)soldier);
    SvREADONLY_on(obj);
    return obj_ref;
}
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obj_ref is an IV (set to 0), pointed at by obj which is an RV, who's IV is set to the address of the struct and then set read only. But then it is obj_ref that is returned.

• Why is the RV called obj and the thing it points to call obj_ref?
• Why is obj_ref returned when it is an IV that has only ever been set to 0?
• How can we (now, since 5.14?), assign the address of the struct to the IV component of obj (which is constructed as an RV remember) without overwriting the pointer now that they are one and the same piece of memory?

Then again, I find almost nothing about XS intuitive and the documentation is shite. If you ask questions about it you either get no answers or an answer of "Do this", with no explanation of why that works. And that smacks of the passing on of rote learnt knowledge with no true understanding. If there is anyone left who really understands this stuff, they are keeping that knowledge firmly to themselves.

If I could get help in understanding this stuff I might have published a whole lot more of my half-finished, but dead-in-the-water projects.

---

Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.

"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".

In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.

MUTABLE_SV(av) is better (SV*)av because it won't cast away const.