Circular references and python

[Neel Krishnaswami]

Jason Stokes <jstok at bluedog.apana.org.au> wrote:
> Well, my adventures with the Python language are moving along.  One thing
> that worries me is the lack of garbage collection in Python; the application
> I'm thinking of using Python for demands many data structures that use
> circular references, but Python only implements a reference counting scheme
> in the way of memory management.  How do I use such data structures in
> Python?

Apply Neil Schemenauer's patches that convinces Python to use the
Boehm garbage collector, or just live with the garbage, if your
program is relatively short-lived. You can find his patch at:

  http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~nascheme/python/gc.html

Manually freeing memory is ugly and error-prone. Don't do it. :)


Neel