inheritance, multiple inheritance and the weaklist and instance dictionaries

[Rouslan Korneychuk]

I'm working on a program that automatically generates C++ code for a 
Python extension and I noticed a few limitations when using the weaklist 
and instance dictionaries (tp_weaklistoffset and tp_dictoffset). This is 
pertaining to the C API.

I noticed that when using multiple inheritance, I need a common base 
class or I get an "instance lay-out conflict" error (my program already 
deals with the issue of having a varying layout), but the error also 
happens when the derived classes have these extra dictionaries and the 
common base doesn't. This doesn't seem like it should be a problem if 
the offsets for these variables are explicitly specified in the derived 
types. I want this program to be as flexible as possible, so could 
someone tell me what exactly are the rules when it comes to these 
dictionaries and inheritance. Also, I don't like the idea of having up 
to four different classes (one for every combination of those two 
variables) that do nothing except tell CPython that I know what I'm doing.

Also is it possible to have a class that doesn't have these dictionaries 
derive from a class that does?

I don't mind hackish solutions as long as they work reliably with 
multiple Python versions.