[Tutor] Variables and constants [was Re: working with strings inpython3]

[Steven D'Aprano]

bodsda at googlemail.com wrote:
> And presumably cleans up the leftover object with the value of 42 when it changes to point at the 43 object?

In principle, yes, the garbage collector will destroy the no-longer used 
object 42 once nothing is pointing to it any more.

But in practice, Python caches "small integers", where the definition of 
small depends on which version of Python you are using, on the basis 
that it's better to hang onto them in a cache for re-use than to keep 
making and destroying them over and over again. This is a classic "time 
versus space" trade-off: using extra memory to save time.



-- 
Steven