A simple solution for Linux and other systems with /proc/self/status
is the following code, which I use in a project of mine:
def memory_usage():
"""Memory usage of the current process in kilobytes."""
status = None
result = {'peak': 0, 'rss': 0}
try:
# This will only work on systems with a /proc file system
# (like Linux).
status = open('/proc/self/status')
for line in status:
parts = line.split()
key = parts[0][2:-1].lower()
if key in result:
result[key] = int(parts[1])
finally:
if status is not None:
status.close()
return result
It returns the current and peak resident memory size (which is probably what people mean when they talk about how much RAM an application is using). It is easy to extend it to grab other pieces of information from the /proc/self/status
file.
For the curious: the full output of cat /proc/self/status
looks like this:
% cat /proc/self/status
Name: cat
State: R (running)
Tgid: 4145
Pid: 4145
PPid: 4103
TracerPid: 0
Uid: 1000 1000 1000 1000
Gid: 1000 1000 1000 1000
FDSize: 32
Groups: 20 24 25 29 40 44 46 100 1000
VmPeak: 3580 kB
VmSize: 3580 kB
VmLck: 0 kB
VmHWM: 472 kB
VmRSS: 472 kB
VmData: 160 kB
VmStk: 84 kB
VmExe: 44 kB
VmLib: 1496 kB
VmPTE: 16 kB
Threads: 1
SigQ: 0/16382
SigPnd: 0000000000000000
ShdPnd: 0000000000000000
SigBlk: 0000000000000000
SigIgn: 0000000000000000
SigCgt: 0000000000000000
CapInh: 0000000000000000
CapPrm: 0000000000000000
CapEff: 0000000000000000
CapBnd: ffffffffffffffff
Cpus_allowed: 03
Cpus_allowed_list: 0-1
Mems_allowed: 1
Mems_allowed_list: 0
voluntary_ctxt_switches: 0
nonvoluntary_ctxt_switches: 0