Profiling memory usage in Mathematica

Question

Is there any way to profile the mathkernel memory usage (down to individual variables) other than paying $$$ for their Eclipse plugin (mathematica workbench, iirc)?

Answer 1

One way is to automatize restarting of kernel when it goes out of memory. You can execute your memory-consuming code in a slave kernel while the master kernel only takes the result of computation and controls memory usage.