[Python-Dev] Dictionary tuning

[Raymond Hettinger]

> And I'm surprised if you read this far.  Summary: i^=1 is not likely to
> win comapred to ++i, unless we increase dict size 33%.

Right!  I had tried i^=1 and it had near zero or slightly negative
effects on performance.  It resulted in more collisions, though
the collisions were resolved relatively cheaply.

I had also experimented with changing alignment, but nothing
helped.  Everything is already word aligned and that takes
care of the HW issues.  The only benefit to the alignment
is that i^=1 guarantees a cache hit.  Without alignment, the
odds are 4 out of 5.3 will have a hit (since there a 5.3 entries
to a line).

Increasing the dict size 33% with unused space doesn't help
sparseness and negatively impacts the chance cache hits you
already have with smaller dictionaries.

heyhey-mymy-there's-more-to-the-picture-than-meets-the-eye,


Raymond Hettinger