#1565525: Add traceback.clear_frames() helper function to clear locals ref'd by a traceback

Doc/library/traceback.rst

@@ -129,6 +129,13 @@ The module defines the following functions:
 
    A shorthand for ``format_list(extract_stack(f, limit))``.
 
+.. function:: clear_frames(tb)
+
+   Clears the local variables of all the stack frames in a traceback *tb*
+   by calling the :meth:`clear` method of each frame object.
+
+   .. versionadded:: 3.4
+
 
 .. _traceback-example:
 

Doc/whatsnew/3.4.rst

@@ -377,6 +377,14 @@ plain tuple.  (Contributed by Claudiu Popa in :issue:`18901`.)
 :meth:`sunau.open` now supports the context manager protocol (:issue:`18878`).
 
 
+traceback
+---------
+
+A new :func:`traceback.clear_frames` function takes a traceback object
+and clears the local variables in all of the frames it references,
+reducing the amount of memory consumed (:issue:`1565525`).
+
+
 urllib
 ------