[Python-Dev] Borrowed and Stolen References in API

[Guido van Rossum]

On Thu, May 5, 2011 at 10:17 AM, Amaury Forgeot d'Arc
<amauryfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2011/5/5 Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org>:
>> Seems you're in agreement with this. IMO when references are borrowed
>> it is not very interesting. The interesting thing is when calling a
>> function *steals* a reference. The other important thing to know is
>> whether the caller ends up owning the return value (if it is an
>> object) or not. I *think* you can tell the latter from the +1 for the
>> return value; but the former (whether it steals a reference) is
>> unclear from the data given. There's even an XXX comment about this in
>> the file:
>>
>> # XXX NOTE: the 0/+1/-1 refcount information for arguments is
>> # confusing!  Much more useful would be to indicate whether the
>> # function "steals" a reference to the argument or not.  Take for
>> # example PyList_SetItem(list, i, item).  This lists as a 0 change for
>> # both the list and the item arguments.  However, in fact it steals a
>> # reference to the item argument!
>
> Should we change this file then?
> And only list functions that don't follow the usual conventions.
>
> But I'm sure that there are external tools which already use refcounts.dat
> in its present format.

Maybe we can *add* a column with the desired information?

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)