[Python-Dev] When do sets shrink?

["Martin v. Löwis"]

Adal Chiriliuc wrote:
> MSVC 7.1 and 8.0 malloc always uses the Windows heap functions
> (HeapAlloc & friends) if running on Windows 2000 or newer
> (malloc.c and heapinit.c).
> 
> So it seems that for both Linux (gcc) and Win (msvc) the memory is
> released to the operating system.

How so? HeapFree does not return the memory to the system. From

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/memory/base/heap_functions.asp

"Once the pages are committed, they are not decommitted until the
process is terminated or until the heap is destroyed by calling the
HeapDestroy function."

Regards,
Martin