Reporting Peak Memory Used on Program Exit (Linux)

Python:

    os.system(‘cat /proc/%d/status | grep Vm’ % os.getpid())

Perl:

    system “cat /proc/$$/status”

VmPeak is the peak virtual memory size, and VmHWM (high water mark) is the peak physical memory (RSS).  This beats polling using top - you can report once at the very end.