mystifying xmlrpclib performance problem...

[Skip Montanaro]

    I'm stumped trying to figure out why Python runs xmlrpclib marshalling
    and unmarshalling so much faster on one machine than another, when
    everything suggests the results should be similar on the two machines.

I finally figured out the problem.  I tested the version number of xmlrpclib
from an interactive Python shell:

    >>> import xmlrpclib
    >>> print xmlrpclib.__version__
    1.0b3

However, that xmlrpclib lives in a directory which is only available when
running interactively.  If I check the version (on Machine 1) without using
an interactive shell I see a different version:

    % python -c 'import xmlrpclib ; print xmlrpclib.__version__'
    0.9.8

On the "should-have-been-faster" machine I was getting the 1.0b3 version of
xmlrpclib.  It appears some changes were made to xmlrpclib between 0.9.8 and
1.0b3 that slow it down considerably.  I'll continue to use 0.9.8 for the
time being.

-- 
Skip Montanaro (skip at pobox.com)
http://www.mojam.com/
http://www.musi-cal.com/