Reference Counts

[raghu]

Heiko,

Thanks for the explanation. I understood the idea of 1 being interned.
Also I understood the globals vars having a reference in the internal
dict.

I ran the "leaky" version of the program and yes...it showed a
progressively increasing totalrefcount as below.
Before 0 : 16579
After 0 : 16581
Before 1 : 16581
After 1 : 16583
Before 2 : 16583
After 2 : 16585
Before 3 : 16585
After 3 : 16587
Before 4 : 16587
After 4 : 16589
Before 5 : 16589
After 5 : 16591
Before 6 : 16591
After 6 : 16593
Before 7 : 16593
After 7 : 16595
Before 8 : 16595
After 8 : 16597
Before 9 : 16597
After 9 : 16599
Before 10 : 16599
After 10 : 16601
Before 11 : 16601
After 11 : 16603
Before 12 : 16603
After 12 : 16605
Before 13 : 16605
After 13 : 16607
Before 14 : 16607
After 14 : 16609
Before 15 : 16609

However, the 'non-leaky' one showed a funny trend ...it kept increasing
the totalrefcount for five iterations (see 1 thru 5) and then dropped
down by 5 ( See Before 5 : 16584
After 5 : 16580 ) suddenly and again increase as shown below. However,
at the time when the script finsished execution, we were not too far
from the starting totalrefcount (16584 from 16579),


Before 0 : 16579
After 0 : 16580
Before 1 : 16580
After 1 : 16581
Before 2 : 16581
After 2 : 16582
Before 3 : 16582
After 3 : 16583
Before 4 : 16583
After 4 : 16584
Before 5 : 16584
After 5 : 16580
Before 6 : 16580
After 6 : 16581
Before 7 : 16581
After 7 : 16582
Before 8 : 16582
After 8 : 16583
Before 9 : 16583
After 9 : 16584
Before 10 : 16584
After 10 : 16580
Before 11 : 16580
After 11 : 16581
Before 12 : 16581
After 12 : 16582
Before 13 : 16582
After 13 : 16583
Before 14 : 16583
After 14 : 16584
Before 15 : 16584

What is the Mystery behind the increase and the subsequent drop ?

Thanks.

Raghavan V