Explain how integers are processed and stored in memory when using Python.

In Python, integers (int) are objects and are stored in memory as instances of the int class. Unlike many languages where integers have a fixed size, in Python they can be arbitrarily large (limited only by available memory).

When creating an integer, Python allocates memory for an object that contains:

• Object header (metadata, such as reference count)
• The value of the number as an array of digits in base 2^30 (on 64-bit systems)

For example, small integers are cached (usually from -5 to 256) to speed up operations and save memory.

Example:

x = 42
print(type(x))  # <class 'int'>

Thus, integers in Python are full-fledged objects with dynamic size, allowing work with large values without overflow.