Python tracemalloc, what is size and count?

Question

I am using the tracemalloc library to pinpoint memory concerns in my application.

This is the code that I am using.

tracemalloc.start()
            snapshot = tracemalloc.take_snapshot()
            top_stats = snapshot.statistics('lineno')
            
            numStats = len(top_stats)
            statsThreshold = 100
            if numStats < statsThreshold:
                numStatsCollections = numStats
            else: 
                numStatsCollections = statsThreshold   

            collectedStats = str(top_stats[:numStatsCollections])
            self.memLogger.error('\n----------START----------\n' +                           
            collectedStats.replace(',','\n') + '\n----------END----------\n')

An example output is as follows.

[<Statistic traceback=<Traceback (<Frame filename='C:\\Users\\TheUser\\AppData\\Local\\Programs\\Python\\Python38\\lib\\base64.py' lineno=87>
)> size=10308228 count=107>
 <Statistic traceback=<Traceback (<Frame filename='C:\\Users\\TheUser\\AppData\\Local\\Programs\\Python\\Python38\\lib\\json\\decoder.py' lineno=353>
)> size=3549589 count=37774>

Can someone please explain what those values mean?

lineno
size
count

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 28 '22 at 23:29

I found this snippet below here https://willnewton.name/2016/12/28/debugging-memory-leaks-in-python/:

"The numbers can be interpreted as follows:

size, the total size of allocations at this call site
count, the total number of allocations at this call site
average, the average size of allocations at this call site "

Lineno is the linenumber.

Python tracemalloc, what is size and count?

1 Answers1