Finding the instance reference of an object

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Thu, 16 Oct 2008 11:51:43 -0700, Aaron \"Castironpi\" Brady wrote:

> If you're sure it's unique, why not just scan through the pairs in
> locals()?
> 
> for k, v in locals():
>   if v is the_object_im_looking_for:
>     name_im_looking_for= k
> 
> This method can sometimes return more than one name, due to the variable
> ordering of objects in dictionaries.

Because:

(1) in general, objects can have no name at all, or multiple names, so 
this won't work in general (although it may work in a specific case); 

(2) it's awfully inefficient if you are doing it a lot; and

(3) even if it works and you can afford to pay the cost, it is almost 
certainly the Wrong Way to solve the problem at hand.




-- 
Steven