Good -- this indicated matplotlib proper is not leaking, so
> it is a figure management problem. You may want to inspect
> _pylab_helpers to see if it is storing references you don't
> want it to.
Here is a little demo to help you if you want to poke into the pylab
helpers data structures. Note you should not manipulate these
structures directly, but through the pylab API
In [2]: import matplotlib._pylab_helpers as ph
In [3]: ph.Gcf.figs
Out[3]: {}
In [4]: figure()
Out[4]: <matplotlib.figure.Figure instance at 0xb5b91e4c>
In [5]: ph.Gcf.figs
Out[5]: {1: <matplotlib.backends.backend_gtkagg.FigureManagerGTKAgg
instance at 0xb5b91f4c>}
In [6]: figure()
Out[6]: <matplotlib.figure.Figure instance at 0xb5b9180c>
In [7]: ph.Gcf.figs
Out[7]:
{1: <matplotlib.backends.backend_gtkagg.FigureManagerGTKAgg instance
at 0xb5b91f4c>,
2: <matplotlib.backends.backend_gtkagg.FigureManagerGTKAgg instance
at 0xb5b91b4c>}
In [8]: close(1)
In [9]: ph.Gcf.figs
Out[9]: {2: <matplotlib.backends.backend_gtkagg.FigureManagerGTKAgg
instance at 0xb5b91b4c>}
JDH