[Python-Dev] MemoryError... how much memory? (original) (raw)

"Martin v. Löwis" martin at v.loewis.de
Thu Oct 28 15:14:22 CEST 2010

Furthermore, our server is fairly complex: we're using quite some libraries to do different jobs, and one of the approaches (not the only one) that we're taking to deal with this beast is to analyze its memory-related behaviour from an external POV (thinking it as a black box).

So, beyond it's arguable utility, do you think that having that information could harm us in some way?

I think implementing it might do harm. When a memory error is raised, you are typically out of memory, so allocating more memory might fail (it just did). Therefore, allocating more objects or doing string formatting will likely fail (unless the requested size is much larger than the memory required for these operations).

So the chance increases that you trigger a fatal error.

Regards, Martin

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