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How would you use the 'faulthandler' module to diagnose a program that crashes with a segmentation fault, typically from a C extension? How do you use memory_profiler (or tracemalloc from the standard library) to identify a memory leak's source in a Python application? How would you use the 'logging' module's exception logging (logger.exception()) INSIDE an except block to automatically capture the full traceback? How do you use pdb's post-mortem debugging mode to inspect a program's state exactly at the point where an unhandled exception occurred? How do you use conditional breakpoints in pdb to pause execution only when a specific condition is met, avoiding manually stepping through many unrelated iterations? How would you use line_profiler (a third-party tool) to get LINE-BY-LINE timing information within a specific function, more granular than cProfile's function-level data? How would you use py-spy (a sampling profiler) to profile a running Python process in PRODUCTION without restarting it or adding any code changes?
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How would you profile memory allocations specifically (not just CPU time) to find which objects are consuming the most memory in a running process?

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Answer

Combine tracemalloc's snapshot statistics grouped by 'traceback' (not just 'lineno') to see the FULL call stack responsible for each allocation, or use a dedicated tool like objgraph to visualize reference chains keeping specific objects alive — CPU profilers like cProfile don't measure memory at all, so a dedicated memory-focused tool is required.
import tracemalloc

tracemalloc.start(25)  # capture up to 25 frames of traceback per allocation
snapshot = tracemalloc.take_snapshot()
top_stats = snapshot.statistics("traceback")
for stat in top_stats[:3]:
    print(stat)
    for line in stat.traceback.format():
        print(line)
Real-world example Diagnosing exactly which code path is responsible for the largest chunk of memory usage in a long-running data processing service.

Common follow-ups: How does objgraph's show_backrefs() help find WHY a specific object is still being kept alive by the garbage collector?

Memory Management & Garbage Collection
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