How can I explicitly free memory in Python?

Question

I wrote a Python program that acts on a large input file to create a few million objects representing triangles. The algorithm is:

1. read an input file

Answer 1

Others have posted some ways that you might be able to "coax" the Python interpreter into freeing the memory (or otherwise avoid having memory problems). Chances are you should try their ideas out first. However, I feel it important to give you a direct answer to your question.

There isn't really any way to directly tell Python to free memory. The fact of that matter is that if you want that low a level of control, you're going to have to write an extension in C or C++.

That said, there are some tools to help with this:

• cython
• swig
• boost python