pymemtrace’s documentation

• Introduction
  • pymemtrace Tools
    • process_tree
    • process
    • cPyMemTrace
    • DTrace
    • trace_malloc
    • debug_malloc_stats
  • Tool Characteristics
  • Installation
  • Licence
  • Credits
• Installation
  • Stable release
  • From sources
• Examples
  • process_tree Examples
    • Example Target
    • Command Line Options
    • Access Denied
    • JSON Output
  • process Examples
    • Monitoring Your Python Process
    • JSON Data
    • Log Level and Frequency
    • Using process as a Decorator
    • Monitoring Another Process
    • Summarising the Log File
    • Using gnuplot on the Log File
  • pymemtrace.cPyMemTrace Examples
    • Introduction
    • Profilers and Tracers
    • Reference Tracing
    • Common Features
  • DTrace Examples
    • Creating a DTrace Build
    • DTrace and C malloc() and free()
    • Using PyMem_RawAlloc
    • Using PyMem_Alloc
    • Using PyMem_Alloc on Small Objects with a Debug Build of Python
    • DTrace and Python’s Object Allocator
    • Further Analysis
  • debug_malloc_stats Examples
    • Adding Small Strings
    • Cost of debug_malloc_stats
  • trace_malloc Examples
    • Using trace_malloc Directly
    • Using trace_malloc as a Decorator
    • Cost of trace_malloc
• Technical Notes
  • Technical Note on the cPyMemTrace Design
    • Stacking Context Managers
    • Stacking Decorators
    • Counting Allocations by Type
  • Technical Note on cPyMemTrace Performance
    • Test Program and Data
    • Profiling
    • Tracing
    • Reference Tracing
  • Technical Note on cPyMemTrace Reference Tracing
    • How Reference Tracing Works
    • A Simple Reference Tracer
    • A More Useful Reference Tracer
    • Guarding Against a Stack Overflow
    • Issues with pytest
  • Using Reference Tracing to Detect Memory Leaks
    • Creating a Memory Leak
    • Using Reference Tracing
  • cPyMemTrace Log File Format
    • Log File Name
    • Profile and Trace Log File Format
    • Reference Tracing Log File Format
  • Technical Note on DTrace
    • Python Builds
    • Baseline: Python 3.9
    • Python 3.9 Release with DTrace support, no Tracing
    • Python 3.9 Release with DTrace support, DTrace Tracing
    • Python 3.9 Debug with DTrace support, no Tracing
    • Python 3.9 Debug with DTrace support, DTrace Tracing
    • Summary
  • Cost of Calculating RSS
    • Using psutil
    • Using cPyMemTrace
• Tracking Down Memory Leaks
  • Introduction
    • Is it a Leak?
    • Sources of Leaks
    • A Bit About (C)Python Memory Management
  • Tools for Detecting Memory Leaks
    • Platform Tools
    • Python Tools
    • Debugging Tools
    • Building a Debug Version of Python
  • Techniques
    • High Level
    • Medium Level
    • Low Level
• pymemtrace Reference
  • pymemtrace.process_tree
  • pymemtrace.process
  • pymemtrace.cPyMemTrace
    • Module pymemtrace.cPyMemTrace
    • Class pymemtrace.cPyMemTrace.Profile
    • Class pymemtrace.cPyMemTrace.Trace
    • Class pymemtrace.cPyMemTrace.ReferenceTracingSimple
    • Class pymemtrace.cPyMemTrace.ReferenceTracing
  • pymemtrace.cpymemtrace_decs
  • pymemtrace.debug_malloc_stats
    • sys._debugmallocatats Implementation (Python 3.9)
    • DebugMallocArenas
    • DebugMallocPoolsBlocks
    • DebugMallocStat
    • DebugTypeStat
    • DiffSysDebugMallocStats
    • POOL_OVERHEAD
    • POOL_SIZE
    • RE_DEBUG_MALLOC_ARENAS_SUMMARY_LINE
    • RE_DEBUG_MALLOC_HEADER_LINE
    • RE_DEBUG_MALLOC_POOLS_SUMMARY_LINE
    • RE_DEBUG_MALLOC_STATS_LINE
    • RE_DEBUG_MALLOC_TYPE_LINE
    • SysDebugMallocStats
    • diff_debug_malloc_stat()
    • diff_debug_type_stat()
    • diff_debugmallocstats()
    • get_debugmallocstats()
    • last_value_as_int()
  • pymemtrace.trace_malloc
    • Module pymemtrace.trace_malloc
  • pymemtrace.cMemLeak
    • Module pymemtrace.cMemLeak
    • Class pymemtrace.cMemLeak.CMalloc
    • Class pymemtrace.cMemLeak.PyRawMalloc
    • Class pymemtrace.cMemLeak.PyMalloc
  • pymemtrace.redirect_stdout
    • stderr_redirector()
    • stdout_redirector()
  • pymemtrace.util.dtrace_log_analyse
    • DTraceFreeCall
    • DTraceMallocCall
  • pymemtrace.util.gnuplot
    • _num_columns()
    • add_gnuplot_to_argument_parser()
    • create_gnuplot_dat()
    • invoke_gnuplot()
    • version()
    • write_test_file()
  • pymemtrace.util.ref_trace_analyse
    • LogFileResult
    • ObjectData
    • main()
    • process_file()
    • process_file_path()
• Contributing
  • Types of Contributions
    • Report Bugs
    • Fix Bugs
    • Implement Features
    • Write Documentation
    • Submit Feedback
  • Get Started!
  • Pull Request Guidelines
  • Tips
• Authors
  • Development Lead
  • Contributors
• TODO
  • Existing TODOs
• History
  • 0.6.0 (2026-05-19)
  • 0.5.0 (2026-05-12)
  • 0.4.1 (2026-05-03)
  • 0.4.0 (2026-04-18)
  • 0.3.1 (2026-03-23)
  • 0.3.0 (2026-03-19)
  • 0.2.0 (2024-11-17)
  • 0.1.7 (2024-09-12)
  • 0.1.6 (2024-09-11)
  • 0.1.5 (2023-06-21)
  • 0.1.4 (2022-03-19)
  • 0.1.3 (2022-03-17)
  • 0.1.2 (2022-03-17)
  • 0.1.1 (2020-11-17)
  • 0.1.0 (2017-12-04)

Indices and tables

• Index

• Module Index

• Search Page