How about introducing internal macros for explicit ob_refcnt accesses in the core? Actually, there are a number of places where one can see "op->ob_refcnt" logic, which could be replaced with _Py_GETREF(op), _Py_SETREF(op, n) thus decoupling completely the low level refcount management defined in object.h: #define _Py_GETREF(op) (((PyObject *)op)->ob_refcnt) #define _Py_SETREF(op, n) (((PyObject *)op)->ob_refcnt = (n)) Comments? I've contributed myself to the mess in intobject.c & floatobject.c, so I thought that such macros would make the code cleaner. Here's the current state of affairs: python/dist/src>find . -name "*.[c]" -exec grep ob_refcnt {} \; -print (void *) v, ((PyObject *) v)->ob_refcnt)) ./Modules/_tkinter.c if (self->arg->ob_refcnt > 1) { \ if (ob->ob_refcnt < 2 || self->fast) if (args->ob_refcnt > 1) { ./Modules/cPickle.c if (--inst->ob_refcnt > 0) { ./Objects/classobject.c if (result->ob_refcnt == 1) ./Objects/fileobject.c if (PyFloat_Check(p) && p->ob_refcnt != 0) if (!PyFloat_Check(p) || p->ob_refcnt == 0) { if (PyFloat_Check(p) && p->ob_refcnt != 0) { p, p->ob_refcnt, buf); ./Objects/floatobject.c if (PyInt_Check(p) && p->ob_refcnt != 0) if (!PyInt_Check(p) || p->ob_refcnt == 0) { if (PyInt_Check(p) && p->ob_refcnt != 0) p, p->ob_refcnt, p->ob_ival); ./Objects/intobject.c assert(v->ob_refcnt == 1); /* Since v will be used as accumulator! */ ./Objects/longobject.c if (op->ob_refcnt <= 0) op->ob_refcnt, (long)op); op->ob_refcnt = 1; if (op->ob_refcnt < 0) fprintf(fp, "[%d] ", op->ob_refcnt); ./Objects/object.c if (!PyString_Check(v) || v->ob_refcnt != 1) { if (key->ob_refcnt == 2 && key == value) { ./Objects/stringobject.c if (!PyTuple_Check(op) || op->ob_refcnt != 1) { if (v == NULL || !PyTuple_Check(v) || v->ob_refcnt != 1) { ./Objects/tupleobject.c if (PyList_Check(seq) && seq->ob_refcnt == 1) { if (args->ob_refcnt > 1) { ./Python/bltinmodule.c if (value->ob_refcnt != 1) ./Python/import.c return PyInt_FromLong((long) arg->ob_refcnt); ./Python/sysmodule.c -- Vladimir MARANGOZOV | Vladimir.Marangozov@inrialpes.fr http://sirac.inrialpes.fr/~marangoz | tel:(+33-4)76615277 fax:76615252