Memory Control - Can you get the memory usage of the interpreter?

[Jean Brouwers]

Assuming you are using Linux, below is an example for the memory usage
and stack size of the current process.  See the man page for proc for
more details.

/Jean Brouwers
 ProphICy Semiconductor, Inc.

<pre>

import os

_proc_status = '/proc/%d/status' % os.getpid()  # Linux only?
_scale = {'kB': 1024.0, 'mB': 1024.0*1024.0,
           'KB': 1024.0, 'MB': 1024.0*1024.0}

def _VmB(VmKey):
    global _scale
    try: # get the /proc/<pid>/status pseudo file
        t = open(_proc_status)
        v = [v for v in t.readlines() if v.startswith(VmKey)]
        t.close()
         # convert Vm value to bytes
        if len(v) == 1:
           t = v[0].split()  # e.g. 'VmRSS:  9999  kB'
           if len(t) == 3:  ## and t[0] == VmKey:
               return float(t[1]) * _scale.get(t[2], 0.0)
    except:
        pass
    return 0.0
 
def memory(since=0.0):
    '''Return process memory usage in bytes.
    '''
    return _VmB('VmSize:') - since
 
def stacksize(since=0.0):
    '''Return process stack size in bytes.
    '''
    return _VmB('VmStk:') - since

</pre>


In article <40ef2dc0$0$546$ed2619ec at ptn-nntp-reader02.plus.net>, Ian
<info at fretfarm.co.uk> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> I have a problem. I have an application which needs to work with a lot of
> data, but not all at the same time. It is arranged as a set of objects, each
> with lots of data that is created when the object is instantiated.
> 
> I'd ideally like to keep as many objects as possible in memory, but I can
> get rid of any object the program isn't currently using.
> 
> Is there any way I can access the amount of memory python is using? I can
> then decide when to give up objects to the gc.
> 
> I don't want to use weakref because the gc simply collects weakref'ed stuff
> whether memory is tight or not, and then I have to recreate it (which is
> costly). I only have one internal consumer for the data, and it is only
> working with one object at once, but may change to a different object at any
> time.
> 
> Thanks in advance
> 
> Ian.
> 
>