[Python-ideas] re.compile_lazy - on first use compiled regexes

[Antoine Pitrou]

On Sat, 23 Mar 2013 15:35:18 +0100
Masklinn <masklinn at masklinn.net> wrote:
> 
> On 2013-03-23, at 14:34 , Antoine Pitrou wrote:
> 
> > On Sat, 23 Mar 2013 14:26:30 +0100
> > Masklinn <masklinn at masklinn.net> wrote:
> >> 
> >> Wouldn't it be better if there are *few* different regexes? Since the
> >> module itself caches 512 expressions (100 in Python 2) and does not use
> >> an LRU or other "smart" cache (it just clears the whole cache dict once
> >> the limit is breached as far as I can see), *and* any explicit call to
> >> re.compile will *still* use the internal cache (meaning even going
> >> through re.compile will count against the _MAXCACHE limit), all regex
> >> uses throughout the application (including standard library &al) will
> >> count against the built-in cache and increase the chance of the regex
> >> we want cached to be thrown out no?
> > 
> > Well, it mostly sounds like the re cache should be made a bit smarter.
> 
> It should, but even with that I think it makes sense to explicitly cache
> regexps in the application, the re cache feels like an optimization more
> than semantics.

Well, of course it is. A cache *is* an optimization.

> Either that, or the re module should provide an instantiable cache object
> for lazy compilation and caching of regexps e.g.
> re.local_cache(maxsize=None) which would return an lru-caching proxy to
> re. Thus the caching of a module's regexps would be under the control of
> the module using them if desired (and important)

IMO that's the wrong way to think about it. The whole point of a cache
is that the higher levels don't have to think about it. Your CPU has
L1, L2 and sometimes L3 caches so that you don't have to allocate your
critical data structures in separate "faster" memory areas.

That said, if you really want to manage your own cache, it should
already be easy to do so using functools.lru_cache() (or any
implementation of your choice). The re module doesn't have to provide a
dedicated caching primitive.

But, really, the point of a cache is to optimize performance *without*
you tinkering with it.

Regards

Antoine.