From: Peter Bierma <zintensitydev@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2025 09:10:37 +0000 (-0400)
Subject: gh-132346: Docs: Clarify that reference counts aren't stable between versions (GH... 
X-Git-Tag: v3.15.0a1~989
X-Git-Url: http://git.ipfire.org/gitweb.cgi?a=commitdiff_plain;h=3dbe02ccd3eefc48ac9fa14427bb4cdb82d1ebae;p=thirdparty%2FPython%2Fcpython.git

gh-132346: Docs: Clarify that reference counts aren't stable between versions (GH-132352)
---

diff --git a/Doc/glossary.rst b/Doc/glossary.rst
index 705b0a9279c6..199a917f9f10 100644
--- a/Doc/glossary.rst
+++ b/Doc/glossary.rst
@@ -1208,6 +1208,11 @@ Glossary
       :func:`sys.getrefcount` function to return the
       reference count for a particular object.
 
+      In :term:`CPython`, reference counts are not considered to be stable
+      or well-defined values; the number of references to an object, and how
+      that number is affected by Python code, may be different between
+      versions.
+
    regular package
       A traditional :term:`package`, such as a directory containing an
       ``__init__.py`` file.