python memory usage

[Ivan Voras]

Peter Maas wrote:

> But python (contrary to perl) starts an interactive interpreter which
> doesn't matter when executing scripts. To get rid of it I created
> a fifo (mknod xxx p) and started all programs with 'prog xxx'.

Why didn't you just make a python script that does nothing (maybe 
something like "while 1: pass")?

> The result:
> 
> CMD               RSS   VSZ
> perl              892  2736
> python            544  2424
> tclsh8.3         1100  2316
> 
> The fifo keeps Python in working memory but since the input isn't
> a tty, the interactive interpreter isnt't started. Is this a
> reasonable comparison or did I miss something?

It cold be ok, but the second rss number seems a bit low. Here (Python 
2.3, FreeBSD 4.9) it looks like this:

tty-interpreter mode:                      rss: 2684, vsz: 3460
running the one-lined empty loop script:   rss: 2212, vsz: 2992
"running" an disconnected fifo:            rss: 1296, vsz: 1992