Python Memory Manager

["Martin v. Löwis"]

>> Also, if it does, how does it deal with memory segmentation? This
>> question bothers me because I've been trying to implement a moving
>> garbage collector, and am not sure how to deal with updating all
>> program pointers to objects on the heap, and thought perhaps an answer
>> to this question would give me some ideas. 
> 
> As I understand it, Python primarily uses reference counting, with a
> mark and sweep scheme for cycle breaking tacked on as an afterthought.

That's not exactly true, i.e. it isn't mark-and-sweep, but some similar
scheme that allows incremental collection without write barriers. This
particular scheme heavily relies on refcounting itself (specifically,
an object is garbage in a certain generation when all references to
it come from the same generation).

As for the consequences of the scheme (i.e. no compaction), you are
right.

Regards,
Martin