Garbage Collection Control
==========================

When having problems that seem to be caused my memory-management
errors, it can be helpful to adjust Python's cyclic garbage collector
or to get garbage colection statistics.  The --gc option can be used
for this purpose.

If you think you are getting a test failure due to a garbage
collection problem, you can try disabling garbage collection by
using the --gc option with a value of zero.

    >>> import os.path, sys
    >>> directory_with_tests = os.path.join(this_directory, 'testrunner-ex')
    >>> defaults = ['--path', directory_with_tests]

    >>> from zope.testing import testrunner
    
    >>> sys.argv = 'test --tests-pattern ^gc0$ --gc 0 -vv'.split()
    >>> _ = testrunner.run(defaults)
    Running tests at level 1
    Cyclic garbage collection is disabled.
    Running unit tests:
      Running:
        make_sure_gc_is_disabled (gc0)
      Ran 1 tests with 0 failures and 0 errors in 0.001 seconds.

Alternatively, if you think you are having a garbage collection
related problem, you can cause garbage collection to happen more often
by providing a low threshold:
    
    >>> sys.argv = 'test --tests-pattern ^gc1$ --gc 1 -vv'.split()
    >>> _ = testrunner.run(defaults)
    Running tests at level 1
    Cyclic garbage collection threshold set to: (1,)
    Running unit tests:
      Running:
        make_sure_gc_threshold_is_one (gc1)
      Ran 1 tests with 0 failures and 0 errors in 0.001 seconds.

You can specify up to 3 --gc options to set each of the 3 gc threshold
values:

    
    >>> sys.argv = ('test --tests-pattern ^gcset$ --gc 701 --gc 11 --gc 9 -vv'
    ...             .split())
    >>> _ = testrunner.run(defaults)
    Running tests at level 1
    Cyclic garbage collection threshold set to: (701, 11, 9)
    Running unit tests:
      Running:
        make_sure_gc_threshold_is_701_11_9 (gcset)
      Ran 1 tests with 0 failures and 0 errors in 0.001 seconds.

Garbage Collection Statistics
-----------------------------

You can enable gc debugging statistics using the --gc-options (-G)
option.  You should provide names of one or more of the flags
described in the library documentation for the gc module.

The output statistics are written to standard error.  

    >>> from StringIO import StringIO
    >>> err = StringIO()
    >>> stderr = sys.stderr
    >>> sys.stderr = err
    >>> sys.argv = ('test --tests-pattern ^gcstats$ -G DEBUG_STATS'
    ...             ' -G DEBUG_COLLECTABLE -vv'
    ...             .split())
    >>> _ = testrunner.run(defaults)
    Running tests at level 1
    Running unit tests:
      Running:
        generate_some_gc_statistics (gcstats)
      Ran 1 tests with 0 failures and 0 errors in 0.006 seconds.

    >>> sys.stderr = stderr

    >>> print err.getvalue()        # doctest: +ELLIPSIS
    gc: collecting generation ...
        
