counting references to an instance

[Brian]

On Wed, 04 Feb 2004 14:57:59 -0500, Aahz wrote:

> In article <pan.2004.02.04.18.55.02.385092.6672 at sympatico.ca>, Brian
> <balex at sympatico.ca> wrote:
>>
>>Is it possible to get an object to return the number of references there
>>are to itself?
>>
>>Ex:
>>
>>class test(object):
>> pass
>>
>>a = test()
>>b = a
>>
>># Should print "2", if I knew the name of the method. print a.refCount()
> 
> sys.getrefcount(a) will do the trick -- but it will print 3.  Can you
> figure out why?
 
Does the instance of test contain a reference to itself?

Brian.