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+
+:mod:`weakref` --- Weak references
+==================================
+
+.. module:: weakref
+ :synopsis: Support for weak references and weak dictionaries.
+.. moduleauthor:: Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake@acm.org>
+.. moduleauthor:: Neil Schemenauer <nas@arctrix.com>
+.. moduleauthor:: Martin von Löwis <martin@loewis.home.cs.tu-berlin.de>
+.. sectionauthor:: Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake@acm.org>
+
+
+.. versionadded:: 2.1
+
+The :mod:`weakref` module allows the Python programmer to create :dfn:`weak
+references` to objects.
+
+.. % When making changes to the examples in this file, be sure to update
+.. % Lib/test/test_weakref.py::libreftest too!
+
+In the following, the term :dfn:`referent` means the object which is referred to
+by a weak reference.
+
+A weak reference to an object is not enough to keep the object alive: when the
+only remaining references to a referent are weak references, garbage collection
+is free to destroy the referent and reuse its memory for something else. A
+primary use for weak references is to implement caches or mappings holding large
+objects, where it's desired that a large object not be kept alive solely because
+it appears in a cache or mapping. For example, if you have a number of large
+binary image objects, you may wish to associate a name with each. If you used a
+Python dictionary to map names to images, or images to names, the image objects
+would remain alive just because they appeared as values or keys in the
+dictionaries. The :class:`WeakKeyDictionary` and :class:`WeakValueDictionary`
+classes supplied by the :mod:`weakref` module are an alternative, using weak
+references to construct mappings that don't keep objects alive solely because
+they appear in the mapping objects. If, for example, an image object is a value
+in a :class:`WeakValueDictionary`, then when the last remaining references to
+that image object are the weak references held by weak mappings, garbage
+collection can reclaim the object, and its corresponding entries in weak
+mappings are simply deleted.
+
+:class:`WeakKeyDictionary` and :class:`WeakValueDictionary` use weak references
+in their implementation, setting up callback functions on the weak references
+that notify the weak dictionaries when a key or value has been reclaimed by
+garbage collection. Most programs should find that using one of these weak
+dictionary types is all they need -- it's not usually necessary to create your
+own weak references directly. The low-level machinery used by the weak
+dictionary implementations is exposed by the :mod:`weakref` module for the
+benefit of advanced uses.
+
+Not all objects can be weakly referenced; those objects which can include class
+instances, functions written in Python (but not in C), methods (both bound and
+unbound), sets, frozensets, file objects, generators, type objects, DBcursor
+objects from the :mod:`bsddb` module, sockets, arrays, deques, and regular
+expression pattern objects.
+
+.. versionchanged:: 2.4
+ Added support for files, sockets, arrays, and patterns.
+
+Several builtin types such as :class:`list` and :class:`dict` do not directly
+support weak references but can add support through subclassing::
+
+ class Dict(dict):
+ pass
+
+ obj = Dict(red=1, green=2, blue=3) # this object is weak referencable
+
+Extension types can easily be made to support weak references; see
+:ref:`weakref-support`.
+
+
+.. class:: ref(object[, callback])
+
+ Return a weak reference to *object*. The original object can be retrieved by
+ calling the reference object if the referent is still alive; if the referent is
+ no longer alive, calling the reference object will cause :const:`None` to be
+ returned. If *callback* is provided and not :const:`None`, and the returned
+ weakref object is still alive, the callback will be called when the object is
+ about to be finalized; the weak reference object will be passed as the only
+ parameter to the callback; the referent will no longer be available.
+
+ It is allowable for many weak references to be constructed for the same object.
+ Callbacks registered for each weak reference will be called from the most
+ recently registered callback to the oldest registered callback.
+
+ Exceptions raised by the callback will be noted on the standard error output,
+ but cannot be propagated; they are handled in exactly the same way as exceptions
+ raised from an object's :meth:`__del__` method.
+
+ Weak references are hashable if the *object* is hashable. They will maintain
+ their hash value even after the *object* was deleted. If :func:`hash` is called
+ the first time only after the *object* was deleted, the call will raise
+ :exc:`TypeError`.
+
+ Weak references support tests for equality, but not ordering. If the referents
+ are still alive, two references have the same equality relationship as their
+ referents (regardless of the *callback*). If either referent has been deleted,
+ the references are equal only if the reference objects are the same object.
+
+ .. versionchanged:: 2.4
+ This is now a subclassable type rather than a factory function; it derives from
+ :class:`object`.
+
+
+.. function:: proxy(object[, callback])
+
+ Return a proxy to *object* which uses a weak reference. This supports use of
+ the proxy in most contexts instead of requiring the explicit dereferencing used
+ with weak reference objects. The returned object will have a type of either
+ ``ProxyType`` or ``CallableProxyType``, depending on whether *object* is
+ callable. Proxy objects are not hashable regardless of the referent; this
+ avoids a number of problems related to their fundamentally mutable nature, and
+ prevent their use as dictionary keys. *callback* is the same as the parameter
+ of the same name to the :func:`ref` function.
+
+
+.. function:: getweakrefcount(object)
+
+ Return the number of weak references and proxies which refer to *object*.
+
+
+.. function:: getweakrefs(object)
+
+ Return a list of all weak reference and proxy objects which refer to *object*.
+
+
+.. class:: WeakKeyDictionary([dict])
+
+ Mapping class that references keys weakly. Entries in the dictionary will be
+ discarded when there is no longer a strong reference to the key. This can be
+ used to associate additional data with an object owned by other parts of an
+ application without adding attributes to those objects. This can be especially
+ useful with objects that override attribute accesses.
+
+ .. note::
+
+ Caution: Because a :class:`WeakKeyDictionary` is built on top of a Python
+ dictionary, it must not change size when iterating over it. This can be
+ difficult to ensure for a :class:`WeakKeyDictionary` because actions performed
+ by the program during iteration may cause items in the dictionary to vanish "by
+ magic" (as a side effect of garbage collection).
+
+:class:`WeakKeyDictionary` objects have the following additional methods. These
+expose the internal references directly. The references are not guaranteed to
+be "live" at the time they are used, so the result of calling the references
+needs to be checked before being used. This can be used to avoid creating
+references that will cause the garbage collector to keep the keys around longer
+than needed.
+
+
+.. method:: WeakKeyDictionary.iterkeyrefs()
+
+ Return an iterator that yields the weak references to the keys.
+
+ .. versionadded:: 2.5
+
+
+.. method:: WeakKeyDictionary.keyrefs()
+
+ Return a list of weak references to the keys.
+
+ .. versionadded:: 2.5
+
+
+.. class:: WeakValueDictionary([dict])
+
+ Mapping class that references values weakly. Entries in the dictionary will be
+ discarded when no strong reference to the value exists any more.
+
+ .. note::
+
+ Caution: Because a :class:`WeakValueDictionary` is built on top of a Python
+ dictionary, it must not change size when iterating over it. This can be
+ difficult to ensure for a :class:`WeakValueDictionary` because actions performed
+ by the program during iteration may cause items in the dictionary to vanish "by
+ magic" (as a side effect of garbage collection).
+
+:class:`WeakValueDictionary` objects have the following additional methods.
+These method have the same issues as the :meth:`iterkeyrefs` and :meth:`keyrefs`
+methods of :class:`WeakKeyDictionary` objects.
+
+
+.. method:: WeakValueDictionary.itervaluerefs()
+
+ Return an iterator that yields the weak references to the values.
+
+ .. versionadded:: 2.5
+
+
+.. method:: WeakValueDictionary.valuerefs()
+
+ Return a list of weak references to the values.
+
+ .. versionadded:: 2.5
+
+
+.. data:: ReferenceType
+
+ The type object for weak references objects.
+
+
+.. data:: ProxyType
+
+ The type object for proxies of objects which are not callable.
+
+
+.. data:: CallableProxyType
+
+ The type object for proxies of callable objects.
+
+
+.. data:: ProxyTypes
+
+ Sequence containing all the type objects for proxies. This can make it simpler
+ to test if an object is a proxy without being dependent on naming both proxy
+ types.
+
+
+.. exception:: ReferenceError
+
+ Exception raised when a proxy object is used but the underlying object has been
+ collected. This is the same as the standard :exc:`ReferenceError` exception.
+
+
+.. seealso::
+
+ :pep:`0205` - Weak References
+ The proposal and rationale for this feature, including links to earlier
+ implementations and information about similar features in other languages.
+
+
+.. _weakref-objects:
+
+Weak Reference Objects
+----------------------
+
+Weak reference objects have no attributes or methods, but do allow the referent
+to be obtained, if it still exists, by calling it::
+
+ >>> import weakref
+ >>> class Object:
+ ... pass
+ ...
+ >>> o = Object()
+ >>> r = weakref.ref(o)
+ >>> o2 = r()
+ >>> o is o2
+ True
+
+If the referent no longer exists, calling the reference object returns
+:const:`None`::
+
+ >>> del o, o2
+ >>> print r()
+ None
+
+Testing that a weak reference object is still live should be done using the
+expression ``ref() is not None``. Normally, application code that needs to use
+a reference object should follow this pattern::
+
+ # r is a weak reference object
+ o = r()
+ if o is None:
+ # referent has been garbage collected
+ print "Object has been deallocated; can't frobnicate."
+ else:
+ print "Object is still live!"
+ o.do_something_useful()
+
+Using a separate test for "liveness" creates race conditions in threaded
+applications; another thread can cause a weak reference to become invalidated
+before the weak reference is called; the idiom shown above is safe in threaded
+applications as well as single-threaded applications.
+
+Specialized versions of :class:`ref` objects can be created through subclassing.
+This is used in the implementation of the :class:`WeakValueDictionary` to reduce
+the memory overhead for each entry in the mapping. This may be most useful to
+associate additional information with a reference, but could also be used to
+insert additional processing on calls to retrieve the referent.
+
+This example shows how a subclass of :class:`ref` can be used to store
+additional information about an object and affect the value that's returned when
+the referent is accessed::
+
+ import weakref
+
+ class ExtendedRef(weakref.ref):
+ def __init__(self, ob, callback=None, **annotations):
+ super(ExtendedRef, self).__init__(ob, callback)
+ self.__counter = 0
+ for k, v in annotations.iteritems():
+ setattr(self, k, v)
+
+ def __call__(self):
+ """Return a pair containing the referent and the number of
+ times the reference has been called.
+ """
+ ob = super(ExtendedRef, self).__call__()
+ if ob is not None:
+ self.__counter += 1
+ ob = (ob, self.__counter)
+ return ob
+
+
+.. _weakref-example:
+
+Example
+-------
+
+This simple example shows how an application can use objects IDs to retrieve
+objects that it has seen before. The IDs of the objects can then be used in
+other data structures without forcing the objects to remain alive, but the
+objects can still be retrieved by ID if they do.
+
+.. % Example contributed by Tim Peters.
+
+::
+
+ import weakref
+
+ _id2obj_dict = weakref.WeakValueDictionary()
+
+ def remember(obj):
+ oid = id(obj)
+ _id2obj_dict[oid] = obj
+ return oid
+
+ def id2obj(oid):
+ return _id2obj_dict[oid]
+