Memory leak ?? [resolved - thank you]

[Kim Petersen]

A.M. Kuchling wrote:
> On Thu, 10 Jul 2003 14:34:05 +0200, 
> 	Kim Petersen <kp at kyborg.dk> wrote:
> 
>>Using python-2.2.2-26 on RH9 (shrike) x86 -fully patched
>>
>>The following program slowly eats up more and more memory when run on
>>large datasets... can anyone tell what the trouble is?
> 
> 
> Your code uses eval(), which is pretty heavyweight because it has to
> tokenize, parse, and then evaluate the string.  There have been a few memory
> leaks in eval(), and perhaps you're running into one of them.  Try using
> int() or float() to convert strings to numbers instead of eval.  As a bonus,
> your program will be faster and much more secure (could an attacker tweak 
> your logfiles so you end up eval()ing os.unlink('/etc/passwd')?).

Thank you very much - it was eval()

this solved my trouble (calling get_list instead of eval) - is there a 
more generic/efficient way of solving reading a list/expression? (i know 
this one will fail for some strings for instance):

def get_value(str):
	str=str.strip()
	if str.lower()=='none':
		return None
	elif str[0] in ['"',"'"]:
		return str[1:-1]
	else:
		if str[-1]=='j':
			return complex(str)
		elif '.' in str or 'e' in str:
			return float(str)
		else:
			return int(str)

def get_list(str):
	try:
		if str[0]=='(':
			robj=tuple
		else:
			robj=list
		items=str.strip()[1:-1].split(', ')
		return robj(map(get_value,items))
	except:
		traceback.print_exc()
		print str
		return []

-- 
Med Venlig Hilsen / Regards

Kim Petersen - Kyborg A/S (Udvikling)
IT - Innovationshuset
Havneparken 2
7100 Vejle
Tlf. +4576408183 || Fax. +4576408188