[Python-Dev] Py_Finalize does not release all memory, not even closely

[Guido van Rossum]

I'm afraid it was wishful thinking on my part.

The best we can try to hope for is to ensure that repeatedly calling
Py_Initialize and Py_Finalize doesn't leak too much memory.

--Guido

On 4/11/06, "Martin v. Löwis" <martin at v.loewis.de> wrote:
> Several places in the documentation claim that Py_Finalize will
> release all memory:
>
> http://docs.python.org/api/embedding.html
>
> says that literally, and
>
> http://docs.python.org/api/initialization.html#l2h-778
>
> suggests it is a bug when memory is not freed in Py_Finalize.
>
> This has left people to believe that this is a bug:
>
> https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1445210&group_id=5470&atid=105470
>
> However, I don't see any chance to make this promise even remotely.
> Objects allocated in extension modules, and held in global variables
> (e.g. socketmodule.c:socket_error, socket_herror, socket_gaierror,
> socket_timeout) will never be released, right?
>
> And because of the small objects allocator, their pool will remain
> allocated, right? And, then, the arena.
>
> So ISTM that invoking Py_Finalize after importing socket will yield
> atleast 256KiB garbage. Of course, that's not real garbage, because
> the next Py_Initialize'd interpreter will continue to allocate from
> the arenas. But still, the actual objects that the modules hold
> on to will not be reclaimed until the process terminates.
>
> Please correct me if I'm wrong.
>
> Regards,
> Martin
>
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--
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)