when running this script:
aList = []
for i in xrange(5E5):
aList += [[]]
for j in xrange(10):
aList[-1].append([])
del aList

It does not give back the memory

even a

import gc
gc.collect()

afterwards does not do it.

In Python 2.5 the memory is freed again correctly, at least under Windows.

The problem came up, because I was parsing a CSV file of 50 MB which
resulted in memory usage of more than 500 MB.

I'm sorry but Python 2.3 is long gone. Its maintenance cycle has ended
over a year ago.Nobody is going to fix an outdated version when the new
versions of Python are working fine. Can you update to a new version of
Python?

No, I can't.
As many Front Arena Developers on the 1.6/2.0/2.1/2.2 can't.
Python 2.4 will be in Front Arena 4.0.
Lightyears away from here.
Same behaviour seen under Solaris 10 / Python 2.5.1

See if gc.set_threshold (0, 0, 0) helps.

How do you know the memory isn't given back? It may be available for
reallocation within Python, just not given back to the operating system.
That's not necessarily a leak or a bug; that could just be heap
fragmentation. There's nothing you can do about it.

Looks like the memory _is_ freed. As Guido said, "It may be available
for reallocation within Python, just not given back to the operating
system". I suggest closing this as invalid.

paul@gonzo:~$ python
Python 2.3.5 (#2, Oct 16 2006, 19:19:48)
[GCC 3.3.5 (Debian 1:3.3.5-13)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import gc
>>> len ([object for object in gc.get_objects () if isinstance (object,
list)])
25
>>> aList = []
>>> for i in xrange(5E5):
...     aList += [[]]
...     for j in xrange(10):
...         aList[-1].append([]
...
...
KeyboardInterrupt
>>>         aList[-1].append([]
KeyboardInterrupt
>>>
paul@gonzo:~/emacs$ python
Python 2.3.5 (#2, Oct 16 2006, 19:19:48)
[GCC 3.3.5 (Debian 1:3.3.5-13)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import gc
>>> len ([object for object in gc.get_objects () if isinstance (object,
list)])
25
>>> aList = []
>>> for i in xrange(5E5):
...     aList += [[]]
...     for j in xrange(10):
...         aList[-1].append([])
...
__main__:1: DeprecationWarning: integer argument expected, got float
>>> del aList
>>> len ([object for object in gc.get_objects () if isinstance (object,
list)])
25

Meh, copied too much. Disregard first part, second shows it.