Hi, someone on this list mentioned that much of the s.get() time is spend on the name lookup for get(). That is indeed the case: =================== from timeit import * stats = ["for i in xrange(1000): iter(s).next() ", "for i in xrange(1000): \n\tfor x in s: \n\t\tbreak", "for i in xrange(1000): s.add(s.pop()) ", "for i in xrange(1000): s.get() ", "g=s.get;\nfor i in xrange(1000): g() "] for stat in stats: t = Timer(stat, setup="s=set(range(1000))") print "Time for %s:\t %f"%(stat, t.timeit(number=1000)) ================== Time for for i in xrange(1000): iter(s).next() : 0.448227 Time for for i in xrange(1000): for x in s: break: 0.141669 Time for for i in xrange(1000): s.add(s.pop()) : 0.348055 Time for for i in xrange(1000): s.get() : 0.148580 Time for g=s.get; for i in xrange(1000): g() : 0.080563 So, now set.get() is indeed the fastest and preferable solution if you need massive amounts of retrieving elements from a set without removing them. wr Am Freitag, 23. Oktober 2009 22:53:24 schrieb Willi Richert:
Hi,
surprised about the performance of for/break provided by Vitor, I did some more testing. It revealed that indeed we can forget the get() (which was implemented as a stripped down pop()):
from timeit import * stats = ["for i in xrange(1000): iter(s).next() ", "for i in xrange(1000): \n\tfor x in s: \n\t\tbreak ", "for i in xrange(1000): s.add(s.pop()) ", "for i in xrange(1000): s.get() "]
for stat in stats: t = Timer(stat, setup="s=set(range(100))") try: print "Time for %s:\t %f"%(stat, t.timeit(number=1000)) except: t.print_exc()
$ ./test_get.py Time for for i in xrange(1000): iter(s).next() : 0.433080 Time for for i in xrange(1000): for x in s: break : 0.148695 Time for for i in xrange(1000): s.add(s.pop()) : 0.317418 Time for for i in xrange(1000): s.get() : 0.146673
In some tests, for/break was even slightly faster then get().
As always, intuition regarding performance bottlenecks is flawed ;-)
Anyway, thanks for all the helpful comments, especially to Stefan for the http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.python.ideas/5606 link.
Regards, wr
Am Freitag, 23. Oktober 2009 19:25:48 schrieb John Arbash Meinel:
Vitor Bosshard wrote:
2009/10/23 Willi Richert <w.richert@gmx.net>:
Hi,
recently I wrote an algorithm, in which very often I had to get an arbitrary element from a set without removing it.
Three possibilities came to mind:
1. x = some_set.pop() some_set.add(x)
2. for x in some_set: break
3. x = iter(some_set).next()
Of course, the third should be the fastest. It nevertheless goes through all the iterator creation stuff, which costs some time. I wondered, why the builtin set does not provide a more direct and efficient way for retrieving some element without removing it. Is there any reason for this?
I imagine something like
x = some_set.get()
I see this as being useful for frozensets as well, where you can't get an arbitrary element easily due to the obvious lack of .pop(). I ran into this recently, when I had a frozenset that I knew had 1 element (it was the difference between 2 other sets), but couldn't get to that element easily (get the pun?)
So in my testing (2) was actually the fastest. I assumed because .next() was a function call overhead, while: for x in some_set: break
Was evaluated inline. It probably still has to call PyObject_GetIter, however it doesn't have to create a stack frame for it.
This is what "timeit" tells me. All runs are of the form: python -m timeit -s "s = set([10])" ...
0.101us "for x in s: break; x" 0.130us "for x in s: pass; x" 0.234us -s "n = next; i = iter" "x = n(i(s)); x" 0.248us "x = next(iter(s)); x" 0.341us "x = iter(s).next(); x"
So 'for x in s: break' is about 2x faster than next(iter(s)) and 3x faster than (iter(s).next()). I was pretty surprised that it was 30% faster than "for x in s: pass". I assume it has something to do with a potential "else:" statement?
Note that all of these are significantly < 1us. So this only matters if it is something you are doing often.
I don't know your specific timings, but I would guess that: for x in s: break
Is actually going to be faster than your s.get()
Primarily because s.get() requires an attribute lookup. I would think your version might be faster for: stat2 = "g = s.get; for i in xrange(100): g()"
However, that is still a function call, which may be treated differently by the interpreter than the for:break loop. I certainly suggest you try it and compare.
John =:->