[CentralOH] Python interpretor question

[Mark Erbaugh]

Jon,

I may not have expressed myself clearly, but I intended to say the same thing you did.

Mark

On Apr 20, 2011, at 8:12 PM, Jon Miller wrote:

> In short, yes, I would agree that f2() is quicker than f1() but not
> for the same reason. :-)
>   I would change your description from saying that "the combined
> namespaces are searched" to "the current namespace is searched, and
> then the parent namespace is searched, and so on until the reference
> is satisfied". Think of the namespaces as nested like the blocks of
> code. In both print statements, the functions f1 and f2 are searching
> their current namespace but only during the f2() block does the
> variable resolution have to look outside to the parent namespace, so
> technically the reference lookup is quicker in the f1() block.
>   The reason I say f2() would be quicker is because of the repeated
> creating and deleting of the fmt1 variable in f1(). Without testing, I
> think it's safe to say that namespace searching, especially in this
> small example, would be much quicker than the work needed to create &
> destroy the formatting string.
> 
> -- Jon Miller
> 
> On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 6:48 PM, Mark Erbaugh <mark at microenh.com> wrote:
>> Hello,
>> I'm trying to get my head around what happens when in a Python program
>> Consider a trivial example
>> def f1(x):
>> fmt1 = "%d"
>> return fmt1 % x
>> 
>> fmt2 = "%d"
>> def f2(x):
>> return fmt2 % x
>> 
>> I believe both functions produce the same results. The question is how
>> Python goes about it.
>> Here's my understanding of what happens:
>> When the module containing this code is imported, module namespace entries
>> are created for f1, f2 and fmt2.
>> When f1 is called, a f1 namespace entry for fmt1 is created then the
>> combined namespaces are searched for fmt1 finding it in the f1 namespace.
>>  When f1 returns the f1 namespace is destroyed.
>> When f2 is called, the combined namespaces are searched for fmt2, finding it
>> in the module namespace.
>> Is it correct that every time f1 is called, the fmt1 = "%d" is processed to
>> add fmt1 to the f1 namespace, but fmt2 is only added (to the module
>> namespace) once?
>> If so, it seems that while f1 results in less pollution of the module
>> namespace, it would be slightly less efficient. Is this correct?
>> Would the same logic apply if f1 and f2 were methods in a class?
>> Thanks,
>> Mark
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> CentralOH mailing list
>> CentralOH at python.org
>> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/centraloh
>> 
>> 
> _______________________________________________
> CentralOH mailing list
> CentralOH at python.org
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/centraloh