How is memory managed in python?

[Christian Heimes]

> In my web application (Django) I call a function for some request which
> loads like 500 MB data from the database uses it to do some calculation and
> stores the output in disk. I just wonder even after this request is served
> the apache / python process is still shows using that 500 MB, why is it so?
> Can't I release that memory?

Are you talking about resident or virtual memory here?