Object Identity and

01 Reference Counting
• Object Identity and Type
• Reference Counting and Garbage Collection
 Exercise

Q. Write a python program to reverse a string.

Note If the input string is xyz5678,
the expected output will be 8765zyx.

s= input("Enter string:")
print (s[::-1])

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 Object Identity and Type

• Every piece of data stored in a program is an object.

Identity
Object Type

Value

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 Object Identity and Type

• When an object of a particular type is created, that

object is sometimes called an instance of that type.

• After an instance is created, its identity and

type cannot be changed.

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 Object Identity and Type

Object’s
Value

Cannot
Can be
be
modified
modified

mutable immutable
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 Object Identity and Type

id()
• The built-in function returns the identity
of an object as an integer.

• This integer usually corresponds to the

object’s location in memory.

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 Object Identity and Type

is operator
type operator
• compares the
• returns the type of
identity of two
an object
objects

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 Object Identity and Type

# Compare two objects

def compare(a,b):
if a is b:
# a and b are the same object
statements
if a == b:
#a and b have the same value
statements
if type(a) is type(b):
# a and b have the same type
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 Object Identity and Type

• The type of an object is itself an object known as

the object’s class.

• This object is uniquely defined and is always the

same for all instances of a given type.

• The type can be compared using the is operator.

• All type objects are assigned names that can be

used to perform type checking.

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 Object Identity and Type

• Most of these names are built-ins,

such as list, dict and file.
• Example:

if type(s) is list:

s.append(item)

if type(d) is dict:

d.update(t)
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 Object Identity and Type

• A better way to check types is to use the

built-in isinstance(object, type) function.

if isinstance(s,list):

s.append(item)

if isinstance(d,dict):

d.update(t)
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 Reference Counting and Garbage Collection

• All objects are reference-counted.

• An object’s reference count is increased whenever

it’s assigned to a new name or placed in a
container such as a list, tuple, or dictionary.

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 Reference Counting and Garbage Collection

a = 37 # Creates an object with value 37

b=a # Increases reference count on 37

c = []

c.append(b) # Increases reference count on 37

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 Reference Counting and Garbage Collection

• An object’s reference count is decreased by the

del statement or whenever a reference goes out
of scope (or is reassigned).

del a # Decrease reference count of 37

b = 42 # Decrease reference count of 37

c[0] = 2.0 # Decrease reference count of 37

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 Reference Counting and Garbage Collection

sys.getrefcount()
• The current reference count of an
object

>>> a = 37

>>> import sys

>>> sys.getrefcount(a)

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 Reference Counting and Garbage Collection

• When an object’s reference count reaches zero,

it is garbage-collected.

• In some cases a circular dependency may exist

among a collection of objects that are no longer in
use.

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 Reference Counting and Garbage Collection

• Each object contains a reference to the other,

the reference count doesn’t drop to zero and
the objects remain allocated.

• To address this problem, the interpreter

periodically executes a cycle detector that
searches for cycles of inaccessible objects
and deletes them.

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 Reference Counting and Garbage Collection

• The cycle-detection algorithm runs

periodically as the interpreter allocates more
and more memory during execution.

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02 References and
Copies
 Data and
03 Program Structure
• Build in Types for Representing Data
• Build in Types for Representing Program Structure
 Built-in Types for Representing Data

type (None) The null object None

int Integer

long Arbitrary-precision integer

float Floating point

complex Complex number

2 bool Boolean (True or False)

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 Built-in Types for Representing Data

str Character string

unicode Unicode character string

( Python 2 only)

list List

tuple Tuple

xrange A range of integers created by xrange ()

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 Built-in Types for Representing Data

dict Dictionary

set Mutable set

frozenset Immutable set

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 Built-in Types for Representing
Program Structure

Type
Type Name Description
Category
Callable types.BuiltinFunctionType Built-in function or method
type Type of built-in types and classes
object Ancestor of all types and classes
types.FunctionType User-defined function
types.MethodType Class method

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 Built-in Types for Representing
Program Structure

Type
Type Name Description
Category

Modules Types.ModuleType Module

Ancestor of all types

Classes object
and classes
Types of built-in types
Types type
and classes

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 Callable Types

• Callable types represent objects that support the

function call operation.

• There are several flavors of objects with this

property, including user-defined functions, built-in
functions, instance methods, and classes.

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 User- defined Functions

• User-defined functions are callable objects

created at the module level by using the
def statement or with the lambda operator.

def foo(x,y):
return x + y
(or)
bar = lambda x,y: x + y

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 Methods
• Methods are functions that are defined inside
a class definition.

class

Method instance

static

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 Methods

instance method

• Instance method is a method that operates on an

instance belonging to a given class.
• The instance is passed to the method as the first
argument, which is called self by convention.

def instance_method(self,arg):
statements

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 Methods

class method

• A class method operates on the class itself as an

object.
• The class object is passed to a class method in
the first argument, cls.

@classmethod
def class_method(cls,arg):
statements
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 Methods

static method

• A static method is a just a function that happens

to be packaged inside a class.
• It does not receive an instance or a class object
as a first argument.

@staticmethod
def static_method(arg):
statements
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 Classes and Instances as Callables

• Class objects and instances also operate as

callable objects.
• A class object is created by the class
statement and is called as a function in order
to create new instances.

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 Classes and Instances as Callables

• In this case, the arguments to the function are

passed to the __init__() method of the class in
order to initialize the newly created instance.

• An instance can emulate a function

if it defines a special method, __call__().

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 Classes and Instances as Callables

• If this method is defined for an instance, x,

then x(args) invokes the method
x.__call__(args).

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 Classes, Types, and Instances

• When you define a class, the class definition

normally produces an object of type.

>>> class Foo(object):

pass

>>> type(Foo)

<type 'type'> # python 2

<class ‘type’>

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 Classes, Types, and Instances

• When an object instance is created, the type

of the instance is the class that defined it.

>>> f = Foo()
>>> type(f)
<class '_ _main_ _.Foo'>

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