Python dumps core with this.. how come?

[Roey Katz]

I'm running Red Hat Linux 5.2, kernel 2.0.36 with 128 MB of memory. 
"Python 1.5.2 (#2, Jun 13 1999, 17:00:15)  [GCC 2.7.2.3] on linux2
Copyright 1991-1995 Stichting Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam"

When I import this module, the interpreter segfaults. 
Thiis module provides a little guard mechanism to keep track of
changes to registered variables. The error occurs when you ty to
instantiate class 'basic_monitor'. Also, I have another question (very
old, and I can't find this in the FAQ):  I want to explicitly take a
reference to an integer.  Take  __setattr__() for example:  is origval
a reference or merely a copy of self.res[ val ]? that is, do I change
self.res[ val ] by changing origval? Will Python2 implement some 
sort of epxlicit referencing operator so that these situations won't
seem as confusing? 
Whatever happened to 
   var :=  val   
for assignment, and
  var2 = &var1
for referencing? The addition of these explicit facilities would
greatly relieve a large portion of my Python problems (is there some
sort of rule-list to follow to figure out when exactly Python will
take a reference (like assigning from an object) or a literal value
(int's)? ). 

Thanks :)
Roey
===================================================


"""module baseMonitor"


class resource_entry:
    def __init__( self, minval, maxval, min_callback, max_callback ):
        self.minval = minval
        self.maxval = maxval
        self.min_callback = min_callback
        self.max_callback = max_callback


class basic_monitor:

    def __init__( self ):
        self.xres = []     # list of resource entries

    def track( self, name, minval, maxval, 
	min_callback, max_callback ):

        self.res[ name ] = resource_entry( minval, maxval,
		 min_callback, max_callback ) 


    def __getattr__( self, name ):
        return self.res[ name ]

    def __setattr__( self, name, val ):
        origval = self.res[ name ]
        if minval < val < maxval:
            origval = val
        elif val  <  minval:
            origval.min_callback()
        elif val  >  maxval:
            origval.max_callback()


if __name__=="__main__":
    m = basic_monitor()