Python's garbage collection was Re: Python reliability

[sjdevnull at yahoo.com]

Paul Rubin wrote:
> This correctly describes difficulties of using a copying GC in
> CPython.  Note that the Boehm GC is mark-and-sweep.  As Alex mentions,
> that usually means there's a pause every so often while the GC scans
> the entire heap, touching all data both live and dead (maybe the Boehm
> GC got around this somehow).

>From the docs:

void GC_enable_incremental(void)
Cause the garbage collector to perform a small amount of work every few
invocations of GC_MALLOC or the like, instead of performing an entire
collection at once. This is likely to increase total running time. It
will improve response on a platform that either has suitable support in
the garbage collector (Linux and most Unix versions, win32 if the
collector was suitably built) or if "stubborn" allocation is used (see
gc.h).