Garbage Collection
Prior to Python 2.0
Cyclical data structures caused memory leaks.
No way to reclaim memory due to reference counting.
a = [ ] b = [ a ] a.append(b) del a del b # a, b still allocated
A problem for certain data structures (graphs, trees, etc.)
Python 2.0 adds garbage collection of cycles
Containers (lists, tuples, dictionaries) placed on internal list
Periodic scan of list used to detect and remove unreferenced cyclical data
Properties of garbage collection can be controlled using the gc module
<<<
O'Reilly OSCON 2001, New Features in Python 2, Slide 29
July 26, 2001, beazley@cs.uchicago.edu
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