Re: [Matplotlib-users] Looking for memory tips for interactive use

[Fernando P. <Fer...@co...>]

D Brown wrote:
> I'm writing batch plotting code in the "traditional" sloppy
> way by typing scripts from the command line in ipython
> until I get what I want and then stringing the lines
> together in a file.  Then I put the whole thing in a loop
> and use run from ipython.  Now I can batch process a bunch
> of .cvs files into nice plots.
> 
> I have two problems though:
> 
> 1. The memory use in python increases about 5-10MB /sec
> during processing. I have pylab.ioff() in the loop and put
> a pylab.close('all') in the loop to try to close the figure
> and release memory. Now 24 files processed results in
> ~190MB memory use.  When I run again it keeps increasing. 
> I'm basically drawing the fig with several subplots and
> labels and then using savefig() to save it to a .png file. 
> Is there some way to release memory explicity?  I'm using
> WinXP and tkAgg backend.  I've tried things like gca() and
> clf() at the beginning of the script to try to reuse the
> canvas but It's not clear it it helps.  Sometimes if I wait
> long enough the memory use goes down so I don't suspect
> it's not a memory leak, but garbage collection problem. 
> Unfortunately the wait can be very long.  General as well
> as specific tips are wellcome.

You can try to do:

import gc
gc.collect()

This will force the garbage collector to kick in, which sometimes may help.

Best,

f