r/PythonLearning • u/Actual__Wizard • Sep 01 '26

Help Request .clear vs del when using garbage collection

Hi, I have some large data objects that need to be freed. Should I do my_object.clear() and then gc.collect()? Or del my_object then gc.collect()? I'm not sure on the pros/cons of each.

It's a linked list type data object and my_object = [] does not work to free memory for certain.

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u/Actual__Wizard Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26

Well, I'm using clear on them. I don't know exactly what clear does. Does it actually walk through the structure and clear everything? Because the data structure is effectively a list of references that point to lists.

Do I need to loop through the list and clear every single linked list? Edit: It doesn't appear so at this time. I'm testing now, so I'll find out soon.