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Slow program exit on Dec Alpha 4.1 OSF

Andrew MacIntyre andymac at bullseye.apana.org.au
Sat Jul 27 21:06:06 EDT 2002 
On 26 Jul 2002 renez at lightcon.xs4all.nl wrote:

{...}

> 	and i run it on part of the repository for 500 files
> 	and it came back with my message (and last statement!)
> 	Done 500 file 485 tags
>
> 	Then the program sits for a long time  (1 min and more)
> 	before it gives me back the shell prompt.
> 	If i look at ps it says
> 	... size    WCHAN    ...
> 	... 25M     nxmbloc  ...

I think you are running into an odd problem with the behaviour of free()
on your OS (FWIW, I've seen similar behaviour on Solaris 2.5.1).

It appears some platform free() implementations try to coalesce small
blocks when free()ing, for better malloc()/realloc() performance.  Python
is free()ing lots of small blocks as it shuts down.

You could try configuring with PyMalloc (--with-pymalloc option to
./configure) to see whether this helps.

--
Andrew I MacIntyre                     "These thoughts are mine alone..."
E-mail: andymac at bullseye.apana.org.au  | Snail: PO Box 370
        andymac at pcug.org.au            |        Belconnen  ACT  2616
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