getting the reference count of an object ...

[Wildemar Wildenburger]

... how?

I'm writing an app that holds a public data dictionary from which other 
objects obtain part of their __dict__ values so they all work on the 
same dataset (yes I'm fiendishly clever and a constructor of unreadable 
sentences (and code) ;)).

My problem is that I haven't found an easy way to determine if said 
dictionary contents are still in use (so it is ok to delete them from 
the dictionary). I've thought about creating a dict subclass that counts 
the number of assignments and deletions but that seems cumbersome (an 
bug-prone).

Is there a way to get the reference count of these datadict items? I 
imagine that this would be a more stable implementation of such a feature.

Hope this gets my problem accross; if not just bash me and I'll 
reformulate. I'm not the best of explainers.

Oh, and sorry if the solution to my problem is obvious (such as an 
__refcount__ attribute or some stupid oversight like that).

c.u.
wildemar