In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Les Schaffer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >so i am curious. so long as i drop all reference to the passphrase >string(s), eventually it gets garbage collected and the memory recycled. >so "before long" the phrase is gone from memory.
Assuming you're talking about CPython, strings don't really participate in garbage collection. Keep in mind that the primary mechanism for reaping memory is reference counting, and generally as soon as the refcount for an object goes to zero, it gets deleted from memory. Garbage collection only gets used for objects that refer to other objects, so it would only apply if string refcounts are being held by GC-able objects. Also keep in mind, of course, that deleting objects has nothing to do with whether the memory gets overwritten... -- Aahz ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ I support the RKAB -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
