[Python-Dev] Need traceback expert to review patch 954922

Armin Rigo arigo at tunes.org
Tue May 18 05:05:04 EDT 2004


Hello Greg,

On Tue, May 18, 2004 at 02:33:42PM +1200, Greg Ewing wrote:
> Now that we have a garbage collector, is it really necessary
> any more? What would happen if we simply set sys.modules to
> None and then invoked the collector?

There is a patch on SF that does this.  Brett, can you see if this patch helps
in your case?

    http://www.python.org/sf/812369

The problem I can see with my patch is that it's not clear to me that it
eventually causes the destruction of enough objects.  For that matter it's not
clear why, or how many, objects we should try to destroy at shut-down time.  
I bet the goal is that if Python is embedded, and initialized and shut down
repeatedly, it should not leak memory.  Someone with such an application
should give my patch a serious try before I can start to believe that no
object is missed.  There are moreover a few other pending issues raised on the
patch's message board.


A bientot,

Armin.



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