I could use some help making this Python code run faster using only Python code.

mensanator at aol.com mensanator at aol.com
Thu Sep 20 19:13:35 EDT 2007


On Sep 20, 5:46 pm, Paul Hankin <paul.han... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sep 20, 10:59 pm, Python Maniac <raych... at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I am new to Python however I would like some feedback from those who
> > know more about Python than I do at this time.
>
> > def scrambleLine(line):
> >     s = ''
> >     for c in line:
> >         s += chr(ord(c) | 0x80)
> >     return s
>
> > def descrambleLine(line):
> >     s = ''
> >     for c in line:
> >         s += chr(ord(c) & 0x7f)
> >     return s
> > ...
>
> Well, scrambleLine will remove line-endings, so when you're
> descrambling
> you'll be processing the entire file at once. This is particularly bad
> because of the way your functions work, adding a character at a time
> to
> s.
>
> Probably your easiest bet is to iterate over the file using read(N)
> for some small N rather than doing a line at a time. Something like:
>
> process_bytes = (descrambleLine, scrambleLine)[action]
> while 1:
>     r = f.read(16)
>     if not r: break
>     ff.write(process_bytes(r))
>
> In general, rather than building strings by starting with an empty
> string and repeatedly adding to it, you should use ''.join(...)
>
> For instance...
> def descrambleLine(line):
>   return ''.join(chr(ord(c) & 0x7f) for c in line)
>
> def scrambleLine(line):
>   return ''.join(chr(ord(c) | 0x80) for c in line)
>
> It's less code, more readable and faster!

I would have thought that also from what I've heard here.

def scrambleLine(line):
    s = ''
    for c in line:
        s += chr(ord(c) | 0x80)
    return s

def scrambleLine1(line):
    return ''.join([chr(ord(c) | 0x80) for c in line])

if __name__=='__main__':
    from timeit import Timer
    t = Timer("scrambleLine('abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz')", "from
__main__ import scrambleLine")
    print t.timeit()

##  scrambleLine
##  13.0013366039
##  12.9461998318
##
##  scrambleLine1
##  14.4514098748
##  14.3594400695

How come it's not? Then I noticed you don't have brackets in
the join statement. So I tried without them and got

##  17.6010847978
##  17.6111472418

Am I doing something wrong?

>
> --
> Paul Hankin





More information about the Python-list mailing list