[New-bugs-announce] [issue1405] Garbage collection not working correctly in Python 2.3

[Stefan Sonnenberg-Carstens]

New submission from Stefan Sonnenberg-Carstens:

when running this script:
aList = []
for i in xrange(5E5):
    aList += [[]]
    for j in xrange(10):
        aList[-1].append([])
del aList

It does not give back the memory

even a

import gc
gc.collect()

afterwards does not do it.

In Python 2.5 the memory is freed again correctly, at least under Windows.

The problem came up, because I was parsing a CSV file of 50 MB which
resulted in memory usage of more than 500 MB.

----------
components: Interpreter Core
messages: 57256
nosy: pythonmeister
severity: urgent
status: open
title: Garbage collection not working correctly in Python 2.3
type: resource usage
versions: Python 2.3

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Tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue1405>
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