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Computer Science Introduction to Data Structures Building a Linked List Removing a Node

leonardo valdes
leonardo valdes
12,384 Points
Posted by leonardo valdes
leonardo valdes
12,384 Points

You don't have to free the memory taken up by the removed node?

I have written Linked Lists in C++, where their removal functions require delete statements to free up the space that the node was using. Do we not need to free up the space when we remove the node in Python? Because even though we've cut the node off from the list, it still exists somewhere in memory, does it not?

1 Answer

miikis
miikis
44,957 Points

Hey Leonardo,

Python has a built-in garbage collector that will free up the memory for you... as long as you don't have any circular references... in which case, you can manually invoke the garbage collector with, IIRC, something like gc.collect().