[Python-Dev] new buffer in python2.7

[Kristján Valur Jónsson]

-----Original Message-----
From: python-dev-bounces+kristjan=ccpgames.com at python.org [mailto:python-dev-bounces+kristjan=ccpgames.com at python.org] On Behalf Of Antoine Pitrou
Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2010 18:36


>Here are micro-benchmarks under 3.2:

> $ ./python -m timeit -s "x = b'x'*10000" "x[:100]"
> 10000000 loops, best of 3: 0.134 usec per loop
> $ ./python -m timeit -s "x = memoryview(b'x'*10000)" "x[:100]"
> 10000000 loops, best of 3: 0.151 usec per loop

That's weird.  The greedy slice needs two memory allocations.  One for the ByteArray object itself, one for its cargo.  In total, more that 100 bytes.  In contrast, creating the MemoryView object requires only one allocation of a few dozen bytes.

The performance difference must come from some other weird overhead, such as initializing the new MemoryView object.

This would be pretty cool to profile using a proper profiler.  I'll see what my MS tools can come up with.

Meanwhile, a patch is in the tracker:

http://bugs.python.org/issue10212
Also this:
http://bugs.python.org/issue10211

There is a precedent of treating the failure to accept the Py_buffer interface as bugs in 2.7.  After all, this is a supported internal buffer.  See for example:
http://bugs.python.org/issue8104

K