Interesting list() un-optimization
Dave Angel
davea at davea.name
Wed Mar 6 22:38:58 EST 2013
On 03/06/2013 10:20 PM, Roy Smith wrote:
> I stumbled upon an interesting bit of trivia concerning lists and list
> comprehensions today.
>
> We use mongoengine as a database model layer. A mongoengine query
> returns an iterable object called a QuerySet. The "obvious" way to
> create a list of the query results would be:
>
> my_objects = list(my_query_set)
>
> and, indeed, that works. But, then I found this code:
>
> my_objects = [obj for obj in my_query_set]
>
> which seemed a bit silly. I called over the guy who wrote it and asked
> him why he didn't just write it using list(). I was astounded when it
> turned out there's a good reason!
>
> Apparently, list() has an "optimization" where it calls len() on its
> argument to try and discover the number of items it's going to put into
> the list. Presumably, list() uses this information to pre-allocate the
> right amount of memory the first time, without any resizing. If len()
> fails, it falls back to just iterating and resizing as needed.
> Normally, this would be a win.
>
> The problem is, QuerySets have a __len__() method. Calling it is a lot
> faster than iterating over the whole query set and counting the items,
> but it does result in an additional database query, which is a lot
> slower than the list resizing! Writing the code as a list comprehension
> prevents list() from trying to optimize when it shouldn't!
>
That is very interesting. list() assumes the __len__() method would be
very quick.
Perhaps list() should take an optional second argument that specifies
the initial length to allocate. That way code that either doesn't want
__len__() to be used, or that already knows a reasonable number to use,
can supply the value to preallocate.
--
DaveA
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