Question

In C++ you can do the following:

int x = 10;
int &y = x;
y = 11;
cout << x << endl; // will print 11

How can I do something similar in python? Trying to make self.session a reference to self.request.session:

self.session = self.request.session

Answer 1

The following will make both self.session and self.request.session refer to the same object:

self.session = self.request.session

If you make a change to session via either of the two references, you’ll be able to observe the change through both:

 self.session.set_foo(42)
 self.request.session.get_foo() # returns 42

If you, on the other hand, rebind either reference by making it point someplace else, that’ll break the link:

 self.session = another_session

Finally, it is important to note that certain Python types are immutable. This includes integers, strings and tuples. While you can have multiple references to an immutable object, the immutability prevents you from making any changes to that object.

This is relevant in light of your C++ example. If you wanted to have a shared reference to an int, and be able to modify that int, you’d have to wrap the int inside a mutable object, and share references to that mutable object instead.