Garbage collection

[Tom Wright]

skip at pobox.com wrote:
> If your program's behavior is:
> 
>     * allocate a list of 1e7 ints
>     * delete that list
> 
> how does the Python interpreter know your next bit of execution won't be
> to repeat the allocation?

It doesn't know, but if the program runs for a while without repeating it,
it's a fair bet that it won't mind waiting the next time it does a big
allocation.  How long 'a while' is would obviously be open to debate.

> In addition, checking to see that an arena in 
> the free list can be freed is itself not a free operation.
> (snip thorough explanation)

Yes, that's a good point.  It looks like the list is designed for speedy
re-use of the memory it points to, which seems like a good choice.  I quite
agree that it should hang on to *some* memory, and perhaps my artificial
situation has shown this as a problem when it wouldn't cause any issues for
real programs.  I can't help thinking that there are some situations where
you need a lot of memory for a short time though, and it would be nice to
be able to use it briefly and then hand most of it back.  Still, I see the
practical difficulties with doing this.

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