Weak Reference Objects

Python documentation

Python supports weak references as first-class objects. There are two specific object types which directly implement weak references. The first is a simple reference object, and the second acts as a proxy for the original object as much as it can.

intPyWeakref_Check(

PyObject

*ob)

Return non-zero if ob is either a reference or proxy object. This function always succeeds.

intPyWeakref_CheckRef(

PyObject

*ob)

Return non-zero if ob is a reference object or a subclass of the reference type. This function always succeeds.

intPyWeakref_CheckRefExact(

PyObject

*ob)

Return non-zero if ob is a reference object, but not a subclass of the reference type. This function always succeeds.

intPyWeakref_CheckProxy(

PyObject

*ob)

Return non-zero if ob is a proxy object. This function always succeeds.

PyObject

*PyWeakref_NewRef(

PyObject

*ob,

PyObject

*callback)

Return value: New reference. Part of the

Stable ABI

.Return a weak reference object for the object ob. This will always return a new reference, but is not guaranteed to create a new object; an existing reference object may be returned. The second parameter, callback, can be a callable object that receives notification when ob is garbage collected; it should accept a single parameter, which will be the weak reference object itself. callback may also be None or NULL. If ob is not a weakly referenceable object, this will raise

TypeError

and return NULL.

PyObject

*PyWeakref_NewProxy(

PyObject

*ob,

PyObject

*callback)

Return value: New reference. Part of the

Stable ABI

.Return a weak reference proxy object for the object ob. This will always return a new reference, but is not guaranteed to create a new object; an existing proxy object may be returned. The second parameter, callback, can be a callable object that receives notification when ob is garbage collected; it should accept a single parameter, which will be the weak reference object itself. callback may also be None or NULL. If ob weakly referenceable object, this will raise

TypeError

and return NULL.

intPyWeakref_GetRef(

PyObject

*ref,

PyObject

**pobj)

Part of the

Stable ABI

since version 3.13.Get a

strong reference

to the referenced object from a weak reference, ref, into *pobj.

On success, set *pobj to a new

strong reference

to the referenced object and return 1.

If the reference is dead, set *pobj to NULL and return 0.

On error, raise an exception and return -1.

Added in version 3.13.

PyObject

*PyWeakref_GetObject(

PyObject

*ref)

Return value: Borrowed reference. Part of the

Stable ABI

.Return a

borrowed reference

to the referenced object from a weak reference, ref. If the referent is no longer live, returns Py_None.

Note

This function returns a

borrowed reference

to the referenced object. This means that you should always call

Py_INCREF()

on the object except when it cannot be destroyed before the last usage of the borrowed reference.

Deprecated since version 3.13, will be removed in version 3.15: Use

PyWeakref_GetRef()

instead.

PyObject

*PyWeakref_GET_OBJECT(

PyObject

*ref)

Return value: Borrowed reference.Similar to

PyWeakref_GetObject()

, but does no error checking.

Deprecated since version 3.13, will be removed in version 3.15: Use

PyWeakref_GetRef()

instead.

intPyWeakref_IsDead(

PyObject

*ref)

Test if the weak reference ref is dead. Returns 1 if the reference is dead, 0 if it is alive, and -1 with an error set if ref is not a weak reference object.

Added in version 3.14.

voidPyObject_ClearWeakRefs(

PyObject

*object)

Part of the

Stable ABI

.This function is called by the

tp_dealloc

handler to clear weak references.

This iterates through the weak references for object and calls callbacks for those references which have one. It returns when all callbacks have been attempted.

voidPyUnstable_Object_ClearWeakRefsNoCallbacks(

PyObject

*object)

This is

Unstable API

. It may change without warning in minor releases.

Clears the weakrefs for object without calling the callbacks.

This function is called by the

tp_dealloc

handler for types with finalizers (i.e.,

__del__()

). The handler for those objects first calls

PyObject_ClearWeakRefs()

to clear weakrefs and call their callbacks, then the finalizer, and finally this function to clear any weakrefs that may have been created by the finalizer.

In most circumstances, it’s more appropriate to use

PyObject_ClearWeakRefs()

to clear weakrefs instead of this function.

Added in version 3.13.