Memory usage of scipy.io.readsav()

[ejhyer]

Memory usage by readsav() is problematic, and may also be slowing it down. Example:
7MB IDL SAVE file:

hyer aerosol_users 6860436 May 18 21:31 test.idldat 

Attempt to read file, including time and memory profiling:

%%time
%memit qq=readsav('test.idldat',python_dict=True)
# same result with python_dict=False

profiling result indicating VERY slow and VERY memory-intensive:

peak memory: 267.28 MiB, increment: 69.73 MiB
CPU times: user 35.2 s, sys: 525 ms, total: 35.7 s
Wall time: 35.6 s

Version info:

import sys, scipy, numpy; print(scipy.__version__, numpy.__version__, sys.version_info)
1.5.2 1.19.2 sys.version_info(major=3, minor=6, micro=13, releaselevel='final', serial=0)

[rgommers]

@ejhyer any chance you can provide a reproducer? This cannot easily be investigated like this.