python memory blow out

[Stephen Thorne]

On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 09:08:59 +0800, Simon Wittber
<simonwittber at gmail.com> wrote:
> According to the above post:
> > a) If the allocation is > 256 bytes, call the system malloc.
> > b) If the allocation is < 256, use its own malloc implementation, which
> > allocates memory in 256 kB chunks and never releases it.
> 
> I imagine this means that large memory allocations are eventually
> released back to the operating system. However, in my case, this
> appears to be not happening.

There was a recent patch posted to python-dev list which allows python
to release memory back to the operating system once the 256kb chunk is
no longer used.

I'm not saying running a bleeding edge CVS HEAD python plus untested
development patches is going to be a solution for you in the short
term, but I just wanted to mention it because I'm excited about this
limitation disappearing in python :).

Regards,
Stephen Thorne