title: Pandas Dataframe memory read_csv
body: <p>There are three screen shots below. The first two show the difference in memory free simply by entering a command which reads a csv to a dataframe (<code>pandas.read_csv</code>).</p>
  
  <p>The third one is the dataframe's <code>.info()</code> stating how much memory is being used by the dataframe.  </p>
  
  <p>The numbers don't add up.</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/9bda421ukwewoef/Screenshot%202014-12-08%2018.09.35.png?dl=0" rel="nofollow">https://www.dropbox.com/s/9bda421ukwewoef/Screenshot%202014-12-08%2018.09.35.png?dl=0</a></p></li>
  <li><p><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/bxx0wczdz7sfhcn/Screenshot%202014-12-08%2018.13.11.png?dl=0" rel="nofollow">https://www.dropbox.com/s/bxx0wczdz7sfhcn/Screenshot%202014-12-08%2018.13.11.png?dl=0</a></p></li>
  <li><p><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/qf20yhpn7w9fmld/Screenshot%202014-12-08%2018.13.44.png?dl=0" rel="nofollow">https://www.dropbox.com/s/qf20yhpn7w9fmld/Screenshot%202014-12-08%2018.13.44.png?dl=0</a></p></li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>Specifically, the <code>df.info()</code> command says there are ~200 MB used by the dataframe.
  The difference in free memory is ~700 MB (and I'm looking at the middle row as per the famous linuxatemyram.com website).</p>
  
  <p>That's terrible! This is repeatable. Is this a bug? Or is there something not being released at the end of the <code>pandas.read_csv</code> method.</p>
  
  <p>THANKS.</p>