On Wed, 26 Jan 2022 at 19:04, Tony Flury via Python-list <python-list@python.org> wrote: > > So according to that I should increment twice if and only if the calling > code is using the result - which you can't tell in the C code - which is > very odd behaviour.
No, the return value from your C function will *always* have a reference taken. Whether the return value is "used" or just dropped, there's always going to be one ref used by the returning itself. The standard way to return a value is always to incref it, then return the pointer. That is exactly equivalent to Python saying "return <thing>". Incrementing twice is ONLY because you want to leak a reference. ChrisA -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
