[Python-ideas] Why not break cycles with one __del__?

[Antoine Pitrou]

On Mon, 13 Sep 2010 12:16:36 -0400
Jim Jewett <jimjjewett at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> The last time I checked, there were proposals toeither  add a
> __close__ or weaken __del__ to handle multi-__del__ cycles -- but
> single-__del__ cycles were already handled OK.

They aren't:

>>> class C(list):
...   def __del__(self): pass
... 
>>> c = C()
>>> c.append(c)
>>> del c
>>> import gc
>>> gc.collect()
1
>>> gc.garbage
[[[...]]]
>>> type(gc.garbage[0])
<class '__main__.C'>