object.h special-build macro minefield: renamed all the new lexical helper macros to something saner, and used them appropriately in other files too, to reduce #ifdef blocks. classobject.c, instance_dealloc(): One of my worst Python Memories is trying to fix this routine a few years ago when COUNT_ALLOCS was defined but Py_TRACE_REFS wasn't. The special-build code here is way too complicated. Now it's much simpler. Difference: in a Py_TRACE_REFS build, the instance is no longer in the doubly-linked list of live objects while its __del__ method is executing, and that may be visible via sys.getobjects() called from a __del__ method. Tough -- the object is presumed dead while its __del__ is executing anyway, and not calling _Py_NewReference() at the start allows enormous code simplification. typeobject.c, call_finalizer(): The special-build instance_dealloc() pain apparently spread to here too via cut-'n-paste, and this is much simpler now too. In addition, I didn't understand why this routine was calling _PyObject_GC_TRACK() after a resurrection, since there's no plausible way _PyObject_GC_UNTRACK() could have been called on the object by this point. I suspect it was left over from pasting the instance_delloc() code. Instead asserted that the object is still tracked. Caution: I suspect we don't have a test that actually exercises the subtype_dealloc() __del__-resurrected-me code.

--- a/Objects/stringobject.c	Thu Jul 11 04:33:41 2002 +0000
+++ b/Objects/stringobject.c	Thu Jul 11 06:23:50 2002 +0000
@@ -3060,9 +3060,7 @@
 		return -1;
 	}
 	/* XXX UNREF/NEWREF interface should be more symmetrical */
-#ifdef Py_REF_DEBUG
-	--_Py_RefTotal;
-#endif
+	_Py_DEC_REFTOTAL;
 	_Py_ForgetReference(v);
 	*pv = (PyObject *)
 		PyObject_REALLOC((char *)v,