import weakref class _BoundMethodWeakref: def __init__(self, func): self.func_name = func.__name__ self.wref = weakref.ref(func.__self__) #__self__ returns the class http://docs.python.org/reference/datamodel.html def __call__(self): func_cls = self.wref() if func_cls is None: #lost reference return None else: func = getattr(func_cls, self.func_name) return func #def __cmp__(self, other): #I decided to remove this, so it will behave the same as weakref.ref #func = self.__call__() #return cmp(func, other) def weak_ref(callback): if hasattr(callback, '__self__') and callback.__self__ is not None: #is a bound method? return _BoundMethodWeakref(callback) else: return weakref.ref(callback) if __name__ == "__main__": class Some: def __init__(self): pass def func(self): pass some = Some() some_func = some.func weak = weak_ref(some_func) some_list = [weak, ] if weak in some_list: print "yeah" print weak() del some del some_func print weak()