From 58a9a2b0b182905b8c70dcead9bb8769ce796292 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Peter Bierma Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2025 05:10:37 -0400 Subject: [PATCH] gh-132346: Docs: Clarify that reference counts aren't stable between versions (GH-132352) (cherry picked from commit 3dbe02ccd3eefc48ac9fa14427bb4cdb82d1ebae) Co-authored-by: Peter Bierma --- Doc/glossary.rst | 5 +++++ 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+) diff --git a/Doc/glossary.rst b/Doc/glossary.rst index 705b0a9279c6d4..199a917f9f101e 100644 --- a/Doc/glossary.rst +++ b/Doc/glossary.rst @@ -1208,6 +1208,11 @@ Glossary :func:`sys.getrefcount` function to return the reference count for a particular object. + In :term:`CPython`, reference counts are not considered to be stable + or well-defined values; the number of references to an object, and how + that number is affected by Python code, may be different between + versions. + regular package A traditional :term:`package`, such as a directory containing an ``__init__.py`` file.