Memory address or assigning the value

#1

a=4
a=“coding blocks”
print(a)
it will print “coding blocks”
this means that pythons has a memory block of 4 also?
#waste of memory?

#2

There is a garbage collector that does the background job for u. Python is all based on pointers. Each of the variables actually points to a memory block which has some content. And the number of variables that are pointing to a memory block is called its reference count. When the reference count of a memory block gets 0. The gc collects that memory back. U can see the reference count of a memory block Using sys.getrefcount(obj)
So when u say a= 4
It looks in the table for the 4 whether created previously, If there exist one. a now points to that memory block.
If there isn’t any, python allocates the memory and puts 4 there.

In later releases, after the first 2 3 versions. Python actually makes certain memory blocks as soon as the interpreter starts for Frequently used values Like 1, -1 etc.

So when you say a= 4, then a = “some string”, the ref count of 4 gets down to 0 and now it’s collected. Basically, when we change the value of a variable, the value stays there only, the variable starts pointing to some new value u have given. But 4 is now not taking space bcoz of this reference count becomes 0 and collected by GC.
Also, try using the “is” operator
It actually returns whether 2 variable points to the same value or not.
You can also refer to this blog for more info : https://medium.com/@tyastropheus/tricky-python-i-memory-management-for-mutable-immutable-objects-21507d1e5b95

#3

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