cdef extern from "Python.h":
    ctypedef struct PyTypeObject:
        Py_ssize_t tp_basicsize
        Py_ssize_t tp_itemsize
        long tp_flags

    ctypedef struct PyObject:
        Py_ssize_t ob_refcnt
        PyTypeObject *ob_type
    cdef PyTypeObject *Py_TYPE(object)


    #####################################################################
    # 3. Reference Counts
    #####################################################################
    # The macros in this section are used for managing reference counts of Python objects.
    void Py_INCREF(object o)
    # Increment the reference count for object o. The object must not
    # be NULL; if you aren't sure that it isn't NULL, use
    # Py_XINCREF().

    void Py_XINCREF(PyObject* o)
    # Increment the reference count for object o. The object may be NULL, in which case the macro has no effect.

    void Py_DECREF(object o)
    # Decrement the reference count for object o. The object must not
    # be NULL; if you aren't sure that it isn't NULL, use
    # Py_XDECREF(). If the reference count reaches zero, the object's
    # type's deallocation function (which must not be NULL) is
    # invoked.

    # Warning: The deallocation function can cause arbitrary Python
    # code to be invoked (e.g. when a class instance with a __del__()
    # method is deallocated). While exceptions in such code are not
    # propagated, the executed code has free access to all Python
    # global variables. This means that any object that is reachable
    # from a global variable should be in a consistent state before
    # Py_DECREF() is invoked. For example, code to delete an object
    # from a list should copy a reference to the deleted object in a
    # temporary variable, update the list data structure, and then
    # call Py_DECREF() for the temporary variable.

    void Py_XDECREF(PyObject* o)
    # Decrement the reference count for object o. The object may be
    # NULL, in which case the macro has no effect; otherwise the
    # effect is the same as for Py_DECREF(), and the same warning
    # applies.

    void Py_CLEAR(PyObject* o)
    # Decrement the reference count for object o. The object may be
    # NULL, in which case the macro has no effect; otherwise the
    # effect is the same as for Py_DECREF(), except that the argument
    # is also set to NULL. The warning for Py_DECREF() does not apply
    # with respect to the object passed because the macro carefully
    # uses a temporary variable and sets the argument to NULL before
    # decrementing its reference count.
    # It is a good idea to use this macro whenever decrementing the
    # value of a variable that might be traversed during garbage
    # collection.

