How do I determine the size of an object in Python?

Question

I want to know how to get size of objects like a string, integer, etc. in Python.

Related question: How many bytes per element are there in a Python list (tuple)?

Answer 1

Having run into this problem many times myself, I wrote up a small function (inspired by @aaron-hall's answer) & tests that does what I would have expected sys.getsizeof to do:

https://github.com/bosswissam/pysize

If you're interested in the backstory, here it is

EDIT: Attaching the code below for easy reference. To see the most up-to-date code, please check the github link.

    import sys

    def get_size(obj, seen=None):
        """Recursively finds size of objects"""
        size = sys.getsizeof(obj)
        if seen is None:
            seen = set()
        obj_id = id(obj)
        if obj_id in seen:
            return 0
        # Important mark as seen *before* entering recursion to gracefully handle
        # self-referential objects
        seen.add(obj_id)
        if isinstance(obj, dict):
            size += sum([get_size(v, seen) for v in obj.values()])
            size += sum([get_size(k, seen) for k in obj.keys()])
        elif hasattr(obj, '__dict__'):
            size += get_size(obj.__dict__, seen)
        elif hasattr(obj, '__iter__') and not isinstance(obj, (str, bytes, bytearray)):
            size += sum([get_size(i, seen) for i in obj])
        return size