Q about tail recursion
Tim Peters
tim_one at email.msn.com
Sat Feb 26 03:26:16 EST 2000
[Felix Thibault]
> I was following the funtional programming thread and trying to get
> an idea about what tail recursion was, so I made these two functions:
>
> def add(inlist, sofar=0):
> if inlist:
> return add(inlist[1:], sofar+inlist[0])
> else:
> return 0
The "return add ..." is a tail call, yes.
> def faketailadd(inlist):
> sum = []
> def add(recur,inlist, sofar, container):
> if inlist:
> recur(recur, inlist[1:], sofar+inlist[0], container)
> else:
> container.append(sofar)
> add(add, inlist, 0, sum)
> return sum[0]
Both "recur(recur, ..." and "container.append(..." are tail calls in this
"add").
> and tested them, and got:
>
> >>> a=time.time();b=test.add(k1);time.time()-a
> 1.70000004768
> >>> a=time.time();b=test.faketailadd(k1);time.time()-a
> 1.70000004768
>
> (k1 is range(1000))
>
> Does this mean that even though there are no return's in faketailadd's
> add, the function still has to work its way back up from all those
> recursive calls ?
Perhaps you're missing that Python does no tail-call optimizations ever; or
perhaps that Python invents a "return None" for you if you don't code an
explict return yourself.
> Or something like that ? Or does it just mean I misunderstood what
> tail-call optimizing is like? Or does that too- good-to-be-true less-
> than-1-nanosecond difference mean my testing is flawed ?
Depending on your platform, time.time may have poor resolution; time.clock
is recommended for benchmarking (and, e.g., generally has better than
microsecond resolution under Windows). The crap at the end of 1.70000004768
looks like floating-point roundoff error made visible. If time.clock
doesn't have beeter resolution than time.time on your platform, you'll have
to arrange to capture the delta over a much longer stretch of time (e.g.,
call test.add in a loop and time the whole loop).
For the most part, you're timing how long it takes to do inlist[1:] (you
have a quadratic-time algorithm buried in here, first copying 999 elements,
then 998, then 997, etc).
after-all-this-i'm-still-not-sure-what-the-question-was<wink>-ly y'rs
- tim
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