Releasing locks to temp files after ArcPy script crashes in ArcMap?

Sometimes when I'm testing an ArcPy script and it ends with exception, ArcMap is still holding locks to some temp files (I run my scripts through ArcMap).

I cannot run the script any more, because it cannot delete/overwrite the temp files and in the end I have to restart ArcMap to release the locks.

Is there a way to do in a more clever fashion?

Answer

I've just come up with the following construction:

def main():
    # my entire code


if __name__ == "__main__":
    try:
        main()
    except Exception, e:
        import gc
        gc.collect()
        import traceback
        arcpy.AddError(traceback.format_exc())

This way I don't loose any messages and so far all locks have been released properly.