Python and Memory

[Alex Martelli]

Ben Fairbank wrote:

> I have to pick a language to commit to for general purpose
> scientific/statistical/utility/database programming at my office and
> have pretty much narrowed it down to R or Python.  Problem:  none of
> the various Python books I have looked into  has had much to say about
> memory.  I will be operating on some big arrays, probably with Numpy;
> if I run out of space and upgrade a Win 2000 or Win XP pro machine
> from 256 Meg to 500Meg or even 1G will Python automatically recognize
> and take advantage of the increase?  Where are questionss such as this
> discussed in the documentation?

Python gets its information about memory (and allocates its memory)
from the operating system.  This is not discussed in the documentation
because it's more or less taken for granted -- that's what one should
assume of any app or language unless other behavior is documented.  If
your Win/2K, Win/XP, or whatever, is able to see your new memory and
make it available to apps (and I see no reason why not), Python, like
any other normal app, should be able to use it just fine.


Alex