Creating variables on the fly...

[Emile van Sebille]

Lately, I've become skeptical of faster claims
when they point away from the obvious.  I know
that there are exceptions, but this is not one.

For a small number of arguments, the difference
is negligible but measurable at a high number of
iterations.  The gap widens with more arguments.

Emile van Sebille
emile at fenx.com
--------------------
from time import time

def add1(*args):
   sum=0
   for arg in args:
     sum=sum+arg
   return sum

def add2(*args):
   return reduce(lambda x, y: x+y, args)

items = (107,  132,  147,   159,   183,
         194,  204,  285,   294,  1107,
         2132, 3147, 4159,  5183,  6194,
         7204, 8285, 9294, 10483, 14572)

for count in (3, 8, 14, 20):
   print '\n---%s---' % count
   for iterations in (5000, 15000, 50000):
      print "    ", iterations,":\n",
      for func in (add1, add2):
         print '  ',func.__name__,

         start = time()
         for i in range(iterations):
            apply(func, items[:count])
         print '%6.2f' % (time()-start)


-------------------


----- Original Message -----
From: Tomek Lisowski <Lisowski.Tomasz at sssa.nospam.pl>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
To: <python-list at python.org>
Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2000 9:23 PM
Subject: Odp: Creating variables on the fly...


> U¿ytkownik Joachim Kaeber <kaeber at gmd.de> w wiadomooci do grup
dyskusyjnych
> napisa³:38E8EFF0.D71D0415 at gmd.de...
> > Hi,
> >
> > what about this:
> >
> > def add(*args):
> >    sum=0
> >    for arg in args:
> >      sum=sum+arg
> >    return sum
> >
> > add(1,2,3,4)
> > => 10
> >
> > add (1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
> > => 28
>
> Why not:
>
> def add(*args):
>   return reduce(lambda x, y: x+y, args)
>
> I am not completely sure, but it may be faster, than a Python for loop
>
> Tomasz Lisowski
>