[Python-Dev] GC Changes

[Hrvoje Nikšić]

On Tue, 2007-10-02 at 10:50 +0100, Gustavo Carneiro wrote:
> Correct.  And that reminds me of the limitation of the the Python GC:
> it doesn't take into account how much memory is being indirectly
> retained by a Python Object.  Like in the example I already gave,
> gtk.gdk.Pixbuf can easily hold hundreds of megabytes, yet the GC gives
> it as much consideration as it does to a simple python integer object
> which is several orders of magnitude smaller.

That sounds like a case for the Pixbuf object to have a "close" method
(not necessarily called that) that releases the resources.  The point of
GC is that you normally don't care if memory is released sooner or
later; for stuff you do care about, such as files, shared memory, or
even large memory objects, there is always explicit management.
cStringIO's "close" method provides a precedent.