Quick Tip: Do you Know How Much Memory Your Python Objects Use?

Find memory used by Python objects

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

In comparison to other languages, Python is not the fastest programming language. Knowing how much memory your application uses is essential to ensure that you don’t slow down your server and also your Python application works hassle-free on mobile devices.

Data structures have the most impact on memory in Python applications. But how do you measure memory?. Memory is measured in bits and bytes.
To find the size of memory used by a Python object, we will use sys.getsizeof function. getsizeof will return the size of your Python object in bytes. This function looks like this:

sys.getsizeof(object[, default])

Since everything in Python is an object, only the memory consumption directly attributed to the object is accounted for.

Lets see how different objects in Python vary in terms of memory size.

1 .Memory size of a String

import sys
my_string = "I love Python"
mem = sys.getsizeof(my_string)
print(mem)

The output is

62

2 .Memory size of a List

import sys
my_list = ['python','ruby','Go','Javascript','Java']
mem = sys.getsizeof(my_list)
print(mem)

The output is

96

3 .Memory size of a Tuple

import sys
my_tuple = ('python','ruby','Go','Javascript','Java')
mem = sys.getsizeof(my_tuple)
print(mem)

The output is

80

As you can see above the list and the tuple contain the same number of elemenrts but the list takes more memory than the tuple.

4 .Memory size of a Dictionary

import sys
my_dict = {"name" : "steve", "age":27}
mem = sys.getsizeof(my_dict)
print(mem)

The output is

232

5 .Memory size of a Set

import sys
my_set = {'python','ruby','Go','Javascript','Java'}
mem = sys.getsizeof(my_set)
print(mem)

The output is

728

6 .Memory size of a Function

import sys
def my_func(a,b):
    return a+b
mem = sys.getsizeof(my_func(2,3))
print(mem)

The output is

28

6 .Memory size of Integers

import sys
inte = 120
mem = sys.getsizeof(inte)
print(mem)

The output is:

28

6 .Memory size of Floats

import sys
floa = 120.478
mem = sys.getsizeof(floa)
print(mem)

The output is:

24

Conclusion

To understand more about Memory management, refer to the Python docs.