Where are Clean()s called?

[samsrabin]

I've noticed that a few types have public procedures named Clean() that seem intended as destructors/finalizers. They're defined as procedures and not finals so they're not called automatically, but I can't find where they are called. (Are they?)

As an example, here's the one from topo_type:

type, public :: topo_type
   ...
 contains
   ...
   procedure, public :: Clean
   ...
end type topo_type

...

subroutine Clean(this)
  ! !ARGUMENTS:
  class(topo_type), intent(inout) :: this
  !
  ! !LOCAL VARIABLES:


  character(len=*), parameter :: subname = 'Clean'
  !-----------------------------------------------------------------------


  deallocate(this%topo_col)
  deallocate(this%needs_downscaling_col)


end subroutine Clean

[olyson]

Maybe from , for example, this:

main/test/topo_test/test_topo.pf: call this%topo%Clean()

[ekluzek]

What @olyson is pointing out is that sometimes we don't use the Clean in the main code, because we don't free memory until the program is finished. So we don't always explicitly call a Clean on everything created. But, the Clean is used in some unit-testers where you do want to clean memory for these objects.

We do have a finalize routine used for CTSM, but in practice there isn't much there. But, we should be calling all the Cleans for objects like this.

[samsrabin]

Ah yes, sorry, this is what I get for posting this the day after my deep dive. I did see they're called in unit tests, thanks for reminding me @olyson. I was wondering why they're only called there.

@ekluzek, that reasoning makes sense—if objects are in scope until the program ends, there's no need for a separate finalizer. Thanks!