https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/5caa6cde5850c2fb1643e95083235e27e3b50dae
commit: 5caa6cde5850c2fb1643e95083235e27e3b50dae
branch: 3.14
author: Miss Islington (bot) <[email protected]>
committer: hugovk <[email protected]>
date: 2025-08-27T18:26:38+03:00
summary:

[3.14] gh-137740: Clarify `__del__` invocation mechanism in reference counting 
(GH-137741) (#138113)

Co-authored-by: Robin Narsingh Ranabhat <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: Kumar Aditya <[email protected]>

files:
M Doc/extending/extending.rst

diff --git a/Doc/extending/extending.rst b/Doc/extending/extending.rst
index fd63495674651b..0c3763b9243e98 100644
--- a/Doc/extending/extending.rst
+++ b/Doc/extending/extending.rst
@@ -1059,7 +1059,14 @@ references to all its items, so when item 1 is replaced, 
it has to dispose of
 the original item 1.  Now let's suppose the original item 1 was an instance of 
a
 user-defined class, and let's further suppose that the class defined a
 :meth:`!__del__` method.  If this class instance has a reference count of 1,
-disposing of it will call its :meth:`!__del__` method.
+disposing of it will call its :meth:`!__del__` method. Internally,
+:c:func:`PyList_SetItem` calls :c:func:`Py_DECREF` on the replaced item,
+which invokes replaced item's corresponding
+:c:member:`~PyTypeObject.tp_dealloc` function. During
+deallocation, :c:member:`~PyTypeObject.tp_dealloc` calls
+:c:member:`~PyTypeObject.tp_finalize`, which is mapped to the
+:meth:`!__del__` method for class instances (see :pep:`442`). This entire
+sequence happens synchronously within the :c:func:`PyList_SetItem` call.
 
 Since it is written in Python, the :meth:`!__del__` method can execute 
arbitrary
 Python code.  Could it perhaps do something to invalidate the reference to

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