Python 2.6 still not giving memory back to the OS...

[ryles]

On Aug 15, 7:55 am, Chris Withers <ch... at simplistix.co.uk> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I thought this was fixed back in Python 2.5, but I guess not?
>
> So, I'm playing in an interactive session:
>
>  >>> from xlrd import open_workbook
>  >>> b = open_workbook('some.xls',pickleable=0,formatting_info=1)
>
> At this point, top shows the process usage for python to be about 500Mb.
> That's okay, I'd expect that, b is big ;-)
>
>  >>> del b
>
> However, it still does now, maybe the garbage collector needs a kick?
>
>  >>> import gc
>  >>> gc.collect()
> 702614
>
> Nope, still 500Mb. What gives? How can I make Python give the memory its
> no longer using back to the OS?
>
> Okay, so maybe this is something to do with it being an interactive
> session? So I wrote this script:
>
> from xlrd import open_workbook
> import gc
> b = open_workbook('some.xls',pickleable=0,formatting_info=1)
> print 'opened'
> raw_input()
> del b
> print 'deleted'
> raw_input()
> gc.collect()
> print 'gc'
> raw_input()
>
> The raw inputs are there so I can check the memory usage in top.
> Even after the gc, Python still hasn't given the memory back to the OS :-(
>
> What am I doing wrong?
>
> Chris
>
> --
> Simplistix - Content Management, Batch Processing & Python Consulting
>             -http://www.simplistix.co.uk

Repeat the 'b = open_workbook ...' line in the interpreter several
times and track the memory usage after each execution. I noticed this
behavior on linux, but saw that after repeating it a few times memory
usage finally stop going up. Probably just the behavior of the
allocator.