cpython/Doc/library/gc.rst

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:mod:`gc` --- Garbage Collector interface
=========================================
.. module:: gc
:synopsis: Interface to the cycle-detecting garbage collector.
.. moduleauthor:: Neil Schemenauer <nas@arctrix.com>
.. sectionauthor:: Neil Schemenauer <nas@arctrix.com>
This module provides an interface to the optional garbage collector. It
provides the ability to disable the collector, tune the collection frequency,
and set debugging options. It also provides access to unreachable objects that
the collector found but cannot free. Since the collector supplements the
reference counting already used in Python, you can disable the collector if you
are sure your program does not create reference cycles. Automatic collection
can be disabled by calling ``gc.disable()``. To debug a leaking program call
``gc.set_debug(gc.DEBUG_LEAK)``. Notice that this includes
``gc.DEBUG_SAVEALL``, causing garbage-collected objects to be saved in
gc.garbage for inspection.
The :mod:`gc` module provides the following functions:
.. function:: enable()
Enable automatic garbage collection.
.. function:: disable()
Disable automatic garbage collection.
.. function:: isenabled()
Returns true if automatic collection is enabled.
.. function:: collect([generation])
With no arguments, run a full collection. The optional argument *generation*
may be an integer specifying which generation to collect (from 0 to 2). A
:exc:`ValueError` is raised if the generation number is invalid. The number of
unreachable objects found is returned.
Merged revisions 64722,64729,64753,64845-64846,64849,64871,64880-64882,64885,64888,64897,64900-64901,64915,64926-64929,64938-64941,64944,64961,64966,64973 via svnmerge from svn+ssh://pythondev@svn.python.org/python/trunk ........ r64722 | georg.brandl | 2008-07-05 12:13:36 +0200 (Sat, 05 Jul 2008) | 4 lines #2663: support an *ignore* argument to shutil.copytree(). Patch by Tarek Ziade. This is a new feature, but Barry authorized adding it in the beta period. ........ r64729 | mark.dickinson | 2008-07-05 13:33:52 +0200 (Sat, 05 Jul 2008) | 5 lines Issue 3188: accept float('infinity') as well as float('inf'). This makes the float constructor behave in the same way as specified by various other language standards, including C99, IEEE 754r, and the IBM Decimal standard. ........ r64753 | gregory.p.smith | 2008-07-06 05:35:58 +0200 (Sun, 06 Jul 2008) | 4 lines - Issue #2862: Make int and float freelist management consistent with other freelists. Changes their CompactFreeList apis into ClearFreeList apis and calls them via gc.collect(). ........ r64845 | raymond.hettinger | 2008-07-10 16:03:19 +0200 (Thu, 10 Jul 2008) | 1 line Issue 3301: Bisect functions behaved badly when lo was negative. ........ r64846 | raymond.hettinger | 2008-07-10 16:34:57 +0200 (Thu, 10 Jul 2008) | 1 line Issue 3285: Fractions from_float() and from_decimal() accept Integral arguments. ........ r64849 | andrew.kuchling | 2008-07-10 16:43:31 +0200 (Thu, 10 Jul 2008) | 1 line Wording changes ........ r64871 | raymond.hettinger | 2008-07-11 14:00:21 +0200 (Fri, 11 Jul 2008) | 1 line Add cautionary note on the use of PySequence_Fast_ITEMS. ........ r64880 | amaury.forgeotdarc | 2008-07-11 23:28:25 +0200 (Fri, 11 Jul 2008) | 5 lines #3317 in zipfile module, restore the previous names of global variables: some applications relied on them. Also remove duplicated lines. ........ r64881 | amaury.forgeotdarc | 2008-07-11 23:45:06 +0200 (Fri, 11 Jul 2008) | 3 lines #3342: In tracebacks, printed source lines were not indented since r62555. #3343: Py_DisplaySourceLine should be a private function. Rename it to _Py_DisplaySourceLine. ........ r64882 | josiah.carlson | 2008-07-12 00:17:14 +0200 (Sat, 12 Jul 2008) | 2 lines Fix for the AttributeError in test_asynchat. ........ r64885 | josiah.carlson | 2008-07-12 01:26:59 +0200 (Sat, 12 Jul 2008) | 2 lines Fixed test for asyncore. ........ r64888 | matthias.klose | 2008-07-12 09:51:48 +0200 (Sat, 12 Jul 2008) | 2 lines - Fix bashisms in Tools/faqwiz/move-faqwiz.sh ........ r64897 | benjamin.peterson | 2008-07-12 22:16:19 +0200 (Sat, 12 Jul 2008) | 1 line fix various doc typos #3320 ........ r64900 | alexandre.vassalotti | 2008-07-13 00:06:53 +0200 (Sun, 13 Jul 2008) | 2 lines Fixed typo. ........ r64901 | benjamin.peterson | 2008-07-13 01:41:19 +0200 (Sun, 13 Jul 2008) | 1 line #1778443 robotparser fixes from Aristotelis Mikropoulos ........ r64915 | nick.coghlan | 2008-07-13 16:52:36 +0200 (Sun, 13 Jul 2008) | 1 line Fix issue 3221 by emitting a RuntimeWarning instead of raising SystemError when the parent module can't be found during an absolute import (likely due to non-PEP 361 aware code which sets a module level __package__ attribute) ........ r64926 | martin.v.loewis | 2008-07-13 22:31:49 +0200 (Sun, 13 Jul 2008) | 2 lines Add turtle into the module index. ........ r64927 | alexandre.vassalotti | 2008-07-13 22:42:44 +0200 (Sun, 13 Jul 2008) | 3 lines Issue #3274: Use a less common identifier for the temporary variable in Py_CLEAR(). ........ r64928 | andrew.kuchling | 2008-07-13 23:43:25 +0200 (Sun, 13 Jul 2008) | 1 line Re-word ........ r64929 | andrew.kuchling | 2008-07-13 23:43:52 +0200 (Sun, 13 Jul 2008) | 1 line Add various items; move ctypes items into a subsection of their own ........ r64938 | andrew.kuchling | 2008-07-14 02:35:32 +0200 (Mon, 14 Jul 2008) | 1 line Typo fixes ........ r64939 | andrew.kuchling | 2008-07-14 02:40:55 +0200 (Mon, 14 Jul 2008) | 1 line Typo fix ........ r64940 | andrew.kuchling | 2008-07-14 03:18:16 +0200 (Mon, 14 Jul 2008) | 1 line Typo fix ........ r64941 | andrew.kuchling | 2008-07-14 03:18:31 +0200 (Mon, 14 Jul 2008) | 1 line Expand the multiprocessing section ........ r64944 | gregory.p.smith | 2008-07-14 08:06:48 +0200 (Mon, 14 Jul 2008) | 7 lines Fix posix.fork1() / os.fork1() to only call PyOS_AfterFork() in the child process rather than both parent and child. Does anyone actually use fork1()? It appears to be a Solaris thing but if Python is built with pthreads on Solaris, fork1() and fork() should be the same. ........ r64961 | jesse.noller | 2008-07-15 15:47:33 +0200 (Tue, 15 Jul 2008) | 1 line multiprocessing/connection.py patch to remove fqdn oddness for issue 3270 ........ r64966 | nick.coghlan | 2008-07-15 17:40:22 +0200 (Tue, 15 Jul 2008) | 1 line Add missing NEWS entry for r64962 ........ r64973 | jesse.noller | 2008-07-15 20:29:18 +0200 (Tue, 15 Jul 2008) | 1 line Revert 3270 patch: self._address is in pretty widespread use, need to revisit ........
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The free lists maintained for a number of builtin types are cleared
whenever a full collection or collection of the highest generation (2)
is run. Not all items in some free lists may be freed due to the
particular implementation, in particular :class:`float`.
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.. function:: set_debug(flags)
Set the garbage collection debugging flags. Debugging information will be
written to ``sys.stderr``. See below for a list of debugging flags which can be
combined using bit operations to control debugging.
.. function:: get_debug()
Return the debugging flags currently set.
.. function:: get_objects()
Returns a list of all objects tracked by the collector, excluding the list
returned.
.. function:: set_threshold(threshold0[, threshold1[, threshold2]])
Set the garbage collection thresholds (the collection frequency). Setting
*threshold0* to zero disables collection.
The GC classifies objects into three generations depending on how many
collection sweeps they have survived. New objects are placed in the youngest
generation (generation ``0``). If an object survives a collection it is moved
into the next older generation. Since generation ``2`` is the oldest
generation, objects in that generation remain there after a collection. In
order to decide when to run, the collector keeps track of the number object
allocations and deallocations since the last collection. When the number of
allocations minus the number of deallocations exceeds *threshold0*, collection
starts. Initially only generation ``0`` is examined. If generation ``0`` has
been examined more than *threshold1* times since generation ``1`` has been
examined, then generation ``1`` is examined as well. Similarly, *threshold2*
controls the number of collections of generation ``1`` before collecting
generation ``2``.
.. function:: get_count()
Return the current collection counts as a tuple of ``(count0, count1,
count2)``.
.. function:: get_threshold()
Return the current collection thresholds as a tuple of ``(threshold0,
threshold1, threshold2)``.
.. function:: get_referrers(*objs)
Return the list of objects that directly refer to any of objs. This function
will only locate those containers which support garbage collection; extension
types which do refer to other objects but do not support garbage collection will
not be found.
Note that objects which have already been dereferenced, but which live in cycles
and have not yet been collected by the garbage collector can be listed among the
resulting referrers. To get only currently live objects, call :func:`collect`
before calling :func:`get_referrers`.
Care must be taken when using objects returned by :func:`get_referrers` because
some of them could still be under construction and hence in a temporarily
invalid state. Avoid using :func:`get_referrers` for any purpose other than
debugging.
.. function:: get_referents(*objs)
Return a list of objects directly referred to by any of the arguments. The
referents returned are those objects visited by the arguments' C-level
:attr:`tp_traverse` methods (if any), and may not be all objects actually
directly reachable. :attr:`tp_traverse` methods are supported only by objects
that support garbage collection, and are only required to visit objects that may
be involved in a cycle. So, for example, if an integer is directly reachable
from an argument, that integer object may or may not appear in the result list.
.. function:: is_tracked(obj)
Returns True if the object is currently tracked by the garbage collector,
False otherwise. As a general rule, instances of atomic types aren't
tracked and instances of non-atomic types (containers, user-defined
objects...) are. However, some type-specific optimizations can be present
in order to suppress the garbage collector footprint of simple instances
(e.g. dicts containing only atomic keys and values)::
>>> gc.is_tracked(0)
False
>>> gc.is_tracked("a")
False
>>> gc.is_tracked([])
True
>>> gc.is_tracked({})
False
>>> gc.is_tracked({"a": 1})
False
>>> gc.is_tracked({"a": []})
True
.. versionadded:: 2.7
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The following variable is provided for read-only access (you can mutate its
value but should not rebind it):
.. data:: garbage
A list of objects which the collector found to be unreachable but could not be
freed (uncollectable objects). By default, this list contains only objects with
:meth:`__del__` methods. Objects that have :meth:`__del__` methods and are
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part of a reference cycle cause the entire reference cycle to be uncollectable,
including objects not necessarily in the cycle but reachable only from it.
Python doesn't collect such cycles automatically because, in general, it isn't
possible for Python to guess a safe order in which to run the :meth:`__del__`
methods. If you know a safe order, you can force the issue by examining the
*garbage* list, and explicitly breaking cycles due to your objects within the
list. Note that these objects are kept alive even so by virtue of being in the
*garbage* list, so they should be removed from *garbage* too. For example,
after breaking cycles, do ``del gc.garbage[:]`` to empty the list. It's
generally better to avoid the issue by not creating cycles containing objects
with :meth:`__del__` methods, and *garbage* can be examined in that case to
verify that no such cycles are being created.
If :const:`DEBUG_SAVEALL` is set, then all unreachable objects will be added to
this list rather than freed.
The following constants are provided for use with :func:`set_debug`:
.. data:: DEBUG_STATS
Print statistics during collection. This information can be useful when tuning
the collection frequency.
.. data:: DEBUG_COLLECTABLE
Print information on collectable objects found.
.. data:: DEBUG_UNCOLLECTABLE
Print information of uncollectable objects found (objects which are not
reachable but cannot be freed by the collector). These objects will be added to
the ``garbage`` list.
.. data:: DEBUG_SAVEALL
When set, all unreachable objects found will be appended to *garbage* rather
than being freed. This can be useful for debugging a leaking program.
.. data:: DEBUG_LEAK
The debugging flags necessary for the collector to print information about a
leaking program (equal to ``DEBUG_COLLECTABLE | DEBUG_UNCOLLECTABLE |
DEBUG_SAVEALL``).
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.. rubric:: Footnotes