Demystifying Python's Garbage Collector: A Deep Dive into Memory Management
Python’s garbage collector (GC) automatically manages memory by reclaiming space from objects no longer in use, combining reference counting for immediate cleanup with a generational garbage collector to handle cyclic references efficiently.[1][2][6] This dual mechanism ensures reliable memory management without manual intervention, making Python suitable for large-scale applications. The Fundamentals: Reference Counting At its core, CPython—the standard Python implementation—uses reference counting. Every object maintains an internal count of references pointing to it.[1][5] ...