[Python-Dev] Caching float(0.0)

[Nick Craig-Wood]

I just discovered that in a program of mine it was wasting 7MB out of
200MB by storing multiple copies of 0.0.  I found this a bit suprising
since I'm used to small ints and strings being cached.

I added the apparently nonsensical lines

+        if age == 0.0:
+            age = 0.0                   # return a common object for the common case

and got 7MB of memory back!

Eg :-

Python 2.5c1 (r25c1:51305, Aug 19 2006, 18:23:29) 
[GCC 4.1.2 20060814 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.1-11)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> a=0.0
>>> print id(a), id(0.0)
134738828 134738844
>>> 

Is there any reason why float() shouldn't cache the value of 0.0 since
it is by far and away the most common value?

A full cache of floats probably doesn't make much sense though since
there are so many 'more' of them than integers and defining small
isn't obvious.

-- 
Nick Craig-Wood <nick at craig-wood.com> -- http://www.craig-wood.com/nick