how to explain this memory usage

[David Bolen]

"Alex Martelli" <aleaxit at yahoo.com> writes:

> On NT,
> 
> >>> x=[str(i) for i in range(100000)]
> 
> makes python.exe's VM Size stat in the Task Manager jump up to
> over 7000K, and a "del x" now makes it jump back down to 2200K
> (was below 1000K before).  Repeating this a few time confirms
> identical numbers (nothing's being leaked here).

NT also seems to wait sometimes before recovering the memory.  In many
of our long running console scripts, you can see very interesting
behavior by minimizing the console containing the script - as soon as
it gets minimized the task manager displayed memory takes a nose dive,
sometimes smaller than what the task used at its initial startup.

Slightly aside - I've tried to find really good references on how
current releases of NT's VM really works (and how that might
correspond to what the Task Manager is displaying) but haven't really
done too well - if anyone has any favorite references or papers I'd
appreciate any pointers.

--
-- David
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