I'm new to python.To find the sizeof an integer i used getsizeof method available in sys module. It returns 24 bytes for integer and 34 bytes for char.
>>> sys.getsizeof(1)
24
>>> sys.getsizeof('a')
34
I feel this size (24 bytes or 34 bytes) is very large to hold an integer or char... I feel that memory is getting wasted much.. Could you please help me in understanding the concept behind this memory management in python.
Because everything is an object, everything has an object bookkeeping overhead. In CPython, it's at least size of a type pointer and reference count for every object. Plus whatever specific objects need for their data. And there's also garbage collector overhead for some objects. Certainly nothing is 'wasted', it's a silly idea.
And there is no char in Python, 'a' is a string of length 1.
dir(1) and dir('a') to get a feel for what these objects can do.int or a "char".Every time you define an object in Python, you’ll create a new object with a new identity.
But there are some exceptions for small integers (between -5 and 256) and small strings (interned strings, with a special length (usually less than 20 character)) which are singletons and have same id (actually one object with multiple pointer).
Examples: In [1]: L1 = [1, 2, 3]
In [2]: L2 = [1, 2, 3]
In [3]: id(L1) Out[3]: 4436443080
In [4]: id(L2) Out[4]: 4436349576
Example 2: In [5]: a = 10
In [6]: b = 10
In [7]: id(a) Out[7]: 4401921584
In [8]: id(b) Out[8]: 4401921584
'a'is a string, not a char.