Re: [Pyobjc-dev] Finding memory leaks?

[Ronald O. <ron...@ma...>]

On 9 Mar, 2010, at 23:00, Orestis Markou wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> just wondering if there is a simple workflow around for finding memory leaks in PyObjC/Cocoa apps.
> 
> Running with instruments/Leaks is not very helpful (or perhaps I don't know how to set it up correctly).

Instruments and leaks aren't  very useful because because those tools don't know about Python objects, and more importantly the Python memory manager.  I tend to use a combination of leaks and Python's gc module to find sources of unexpected memory usage.

What also can help is to create a separate python build using  '--without-pymalloc'.  This results in a slower binary, but one that uses straight malloc/free instead of Python's memory manager. This makes using Apple's tools more productive.

Ronald