Accessing Object Memory Address

python object memory-address repr
thr picture thr · Sep 23, 2008 · Viewed 194.2k times · Source

When you call the object.__repr__() method in Python you get something like this back: 

<__main__.Test object at 0x2aba1c0cf890>

Is there any way to get a hold of the memory address if you overload __repr__(), other then calling super(Class, obj).__repr__() and regexing it out?

Answer

Nick Johnson picture Nick Johnson · Sep 23, 2008

The Python manual has this to say about id():

Return the "identity'' of an object. This is an integer (or long integer) which is guaranteed to be unique and constant for this object during its lifetime. Two objects with non-overlapping lifetimes may have the same id() value. (Implementation note: this is the address of the object.)

So in CPython, this will be the address of the object. No such guarantee for any other Python interpreter, though.

Note that if you're writing a C extension, you have full access to the internals of the Python interpreter, including access to the addresses of objects directly.

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