[Python-Dev] making weakref.ref objects subclassable

[Fred L. Drake, Jr.]

I'm planning to commit a patch (http://www.python.org/sf/983019) that makes 
weak references subclassable.  This includes the following changes:

- weakref.ref and weakref.ReferenceType will become aliases for each other

- weakref.ref will be a modern, new-style class with proper __new__ and 
__init__ methods

- weakref.WeakValueDictionary will have a lighter memory footprint, using a 
new weakref.ref subclass to associate the key with the value, allowing us to 
have only a single object of overhead for each dictionary entry (currently, 
there are 3 objects of overhead per entry: a weakref to the value, a weakref 
to the dictionary, and a function object used as a weakref callback; the 
weakref to the dictionary could be avoided without this change)

- a new macro, PyWeakref_CheckRefExact(), will be added

- PyWeakref_CheckRef() will check for subclasses of weakref.ref

- the cyclic garbage detector will be affected by the change to 
PyWeakref_CheckRef(); it will potentially call issubtype() for objects in the 
unreachable list that do not have finalizers (in the move_troublemakers() 
function).  This should only happen for weakref objects which are not of one 
of the "standard" three types (ref, proxy, and callable proxy).  For debug 
builds, it will also affect assertions in the clear_weakerfs() and 
release_weakrefs() functions.

The change to the  cyclic garbage detector probably carries the most risk, and 
that only because the potential for a performance penalty.  Running the Zope 
3 test suite did not show any clear change in performance, and a key 
subsystem in Zope (zope.interface) uses weakrefs extensively.


  -Fred

-- 
Fred L. Drake, Jr.  <fdrake at acm.org>