RePost: Object deletion problem

[Nick Belshaw]

If someone could spare a moment to explain this little observation -
I do not know whether it is significant/expected/unexpected....

I am trying to track down a memory leak and noticed the following in a
piece of test code whilst trying to reproduce some effects.
On a Linux RedHat6.1 Box if I run the  code and hit the offered build
button - I simply populate the screen with a number of windows. If I
then hit the destroy button, the windows are removed and the __del__
method of each child is called ok, but if I look at memory usage using
'Top' I see that no memory is released?
However - if I increase the dummy-data count  from  30000 to 40000 or
above, the memory IS released.

Is this ok or might it be giving me a problem?

Thanks for any help

Nick/Oxford

---------code-------------(probably mangled)
#!/usr/bin/python

import sys,Tkinter

class Child(Tkinter.Frame):
    def __init__(self, window):
        self.w = window
        Tkinter.Frame.__init__(self,self.w)
        self.data = [1.23456789]*30000     #<<<<----dummy data to eat
memory
        self.l = Tkinter.Label(self.w,text='hello')
        self.l.pack()

    def __del__(self):
        print 'see delete request ',self

class Parent:
        def depopulate(self):
                for each in self.childlist:
                        each.w.destroy()
                self.childlist = [0]*self.count


 def populate(self):
         for a in range(self.count):
                 new_window = Tkinter.Toplevel(self.W)
                 self.childlist[a] = Child(new_window)

 def __init__(self, W, n=10):
         self.count = n
         self.childlist = [0]*self.count
         self.W = W
         self.b1 =
Tkinter.Button(self.W,text='destroy',command=self.depopulate)
         self.b1.pack(side='right')
         self.b2 =
Tkinter.Button(self.W,text='build',command=self.populate)
         self.b2.pack(side='right')


W = Tkinter.Tk()

test = Parent(W,50)

W.mainloop()

----------------------------------------------------------------