Low-Overhead Statistical Memory Profiling in PyPy: Integrating VMProf and the GC

This blog post describes a novel approach to low-overhead statistical memory profiling for PyPy. Instead of recording every allocation, it samples every nth allocated byte, cleverly integrating the sampling logic into PyPy's garbage collector's (GC) bump pointer allocator check. This ensures the fast path remains identical with and without memory sampling, minimizing overhead. Experiments demonstrate good performance across various sampling rates, offering finer control and lower overhead for memory profiling.