[Python-Dev] genexps slow?

[Tim Peters]

[Tim Peters]
>> Resuming a generator function is a lot cheaper than calling a
>> function, but there's still a non-trivial amount of code to get in
>> and out of eval_frame() each time, which the listcomp version gets
>> to skip.

[Michael Hudson.
> This is something that occurred to me a while ago: how many opcodes
> does a typical invocation of eval_frame actually execute?  A little
> script told me that the median length of functions in Lib/*.py was 38
> instructions (or 52 bytes) IIRC, but obviously a dynamic count is far
> more interesting.  If the number is fairly small (and honestly, I have
> no idea), the set up and tear down code becomes much more significant
> than one might think.

And whatever it is, I expect it will be significantly smaller for functions
synthesized to implement generator expressions.

> I didn't think much about the code to get *out* of eval_frame.

There's a twist there:  the functions synthesized for generator expressions
get to take the quicker-than-general "fast_yield" exit path.  Hmm!  It looks
like tests against WHY_YIELD before the fast_yield label can no longer
succeed, but are still there to slow down non-generator cases.