Paul Rubin wrote:
sturlamolden <[email protected]> writes:
Python uses reference counting, not a generational GC like Java. A
Python object is destroyed when the refcount drops to 0. The GC only
collects cyclic references. If you create none, there are no GC delays
(you can in fact safely turn the GC off). Python does not share Java's
nasty habit of having long GC delays.
If you drop the last reference to a large object (say a billion item
dictionary), then Python can pause for quite a long time freeing
all the constituents of that object.
(Both of these messages refer to an implementation, CPython, not the
language Python.)
The key difference is that CPython "pauses" at a deterministic point in
the code, because of something the program has specified, rather than at
a point when some system measurement decides that now would be a good
time for gc.
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