is cPickle really this slow?

[Dag]

In article <roy-FD4DA7.07325930092002 at reader1.panix.com>, Roy Smith wrote:
> Dag <dag at animagicnet.no> wrote:
>> So I pickle my dictionary, which ends up
>> being a 3.2MB file and try to run my script again, this time getting 
>> the pickled dictonary instead of building it at runtime.  This time
>> however the script takes over 35 seconds to run, close to three times
>> as long.
> 
> Did you use the optional third argument which tells pickle to write the 
> file out in binary?  My experience is that the difference in performance 
> between reading binary and ascii pickles will be substantial.

Wow.  Yea that made all the difference.  Runtime went from 35 to 3 seconds.

Dag