[TIP] Interesting getattr pattern [was: Re: [issue5728] Support telling TestResult objects a test run has finished]

[John Arbash Meinel]

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John Arbash Meinel wrote:
> Raphael Marvie wrote:
>> In fact my question was, would any one consider the proposal I made a
>> bad choice regarding performance. I am most often not limited by
>> performance issues. I just like to avoid tests when I can use some kind
>> of polymorphism, which I find cleaner to read. I'll remember the noop
>> name instead of donothing.
> 
>> r.
> 
> I'll mention that on top of the time to create a closure (create the
> lambda/named function), you also encounter function call overhead. From
> all of the profiling tests I've done, a conditional is *much* cheaper
> than a no-op function call. AIUI, any function call has to create a
> frame, and those take longer than you'd like.
> 
> John
> =:->
> 

I don't know if this is 100% valid but:


$ python -mtimeit -s'x = None' 'x is None'
10000000 loops, best of 3: 0.0497 usec per loop

$ python -mtimeit -s'y = object()' 'y is None'
10000000 loops, best of 3: 0.0493 usec per loop

$ python -mtimeit -s'def noop(): pass' 'noop()'
10000000 loops, best of 3: 0.15 usec per loop

So at least according to that, a no-op function call is 3x slower than
an 'is None' check.

Now maybe it is a bit more fair to add an if() check on that:

$ python -mtimeit -s'x = None' 'if x is None: pass'
10000000 loops, best of 3: 0.0486 usec per loop

$ python -mtimeit -s'y = object()' 'if y is None: pass'
10000000 loops, best of 3: 0.0512 usec per loop

hmm.... the time seems to have improved? Anyway, no-op functions are
quite a bit slower than an 'is None' check. So if you make a habit of
checking 'is None' things go a bit faster.

I'll also note that just doing "if x: pass" is ever so slightly faster
than "if x is None:"
10000000 loops, best of 3: 0.0394 usec per loop

John
=:->
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