Finding the instance reference of an object [long and probably boring]

[Aaron Brady]

On Nov 8, 8:42 am, Joe Strout <j... at strout.net> wrote:
> On Nov 7, 2008, at 6:21 PM, Aaron Brady wrote:
>
> > Therefore objects don't need names to exist.  Having a name is
> > sufficient but not necessary to exist.  Being in a container is
> > neither necessary -nor- sufficient.
>
> What do you mean?  Being in a container isn't necessary, but it  
> certainly is sufficient.
>
> Having ANY references to it is both necessary and sufficient to  
> exist.  And isn't that the easiest way to say it?

No, you forgot about cyclically-linked garbage, which Python
implementations are allowed to, but not required to, collect.