[Matrix-SIG] performance hit in c extensions

[Heather Drury]

Hi,

Thanks for everyones suggestions re: performance slow down in python.
I've done some more experiments and here is some additional information:

I wrote a very small python test script that calls my C wrapped code (which 
is computationally expensive) with a small array and it took 2.5 minutes. 

I then called the same function from my relatively large python program
(lots of graphics & vtk stuff) and it took 13 MINUTES!!

Ouch. 

The disk is not thrashing. Over 200 meg of memory is free when
I run the program. When I call the function from my "big" program it starts
off pretty quickly and then gradually slows to a crawl. 

So, it's not python. It seems to be memory related (I guess). Is
there some limitation to the size of memory that the python
interpreter can use?

Heather
-- 

Heather Drury                               	heather@v1.wustl.edu 
Washington University School of Medicine    	http://v1.wustl.edu	
Department of Anatomy & Neurobiology         	Phone: 314-362-4325
660 S. Euclid, MS 8108                       	FAX: 314-747-4370
St. Louis, MO 63110-1093