Python object deleting itself

Question

Why won\'t this work? I\'m trying to make an instance of a class delete itself.

>>> class A():
    def kill(self):
        del self


>>>          


        

Answer 1

Indeed, Python does garbage collection through reference counting. As soon as the last reference to an object falls out of scope, it is deleted. In your example:

a = A()
a.kill()

I don't believe there's any way for variable 'a' to implicitly set itself to None.