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pythonperformance
Hanfei Sun
Hanfei Sun

Reputation: 47051

Will a+=1 be faster than a = a+1 in Python?

I'm not sure whether it's the same in Python.

Has anyone tried that before?

http://docs.python.org/library/operator#operator.iadd

Upvotes: 6

Views: 13803

Answers (4)

Aaron Newton
Aaron Newton

Reputation: 2306

I took a slightly different approach using the cProfile module:

$ python -m cProfile test.py 
     4 function calls in 0.397 seconds

Ordered by: standard name

   ncalls  tottime  percall  cumtime  percall filename:lineno(function)
        1    0.000    0.000    0.397    0.397 test.py:2(<module>)
        1    0.205    0.205    0.205    0.205 test.py:2(add1)
        1    0.192    0.192    0.192    0.192 test.py:6(add2)
        1    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000 {method 'disable' of '_lsprof.Profiler' objects}




aaron@zebrafish:~/pyad$ cat test.py 
def add1(a):
    for x in xrange(10 ** 6):
        a += 1

def add2(a):
    for x in xrange(10 ** 6):
        a = a + 1

add1(0)
add2(0)

After about 20 runs I would conclude that add2 (using a = a + 1) was very slightly faster, but not in all cases (perhaps try it with a greater number of loops). This is probably not the best heuristic, but I figure a greater number of repetitions with larger and larger numbers should indicate a performance difference.

EDIT - results for 10 ** 9 calls:

    1  216.119  216.119  216.119  216.119 test.py:2(add1)
    1  195.364  195.364  195.364  195.364 test.py:6(add2)

Upvotes: 1

Martijn Pieters
Martijn Pieters

Reputation: 1121844

There hardly is a difference in the work python performs for either statement:

>>> import dis
>>> def inplace_add():
...     a = 0
...     a += 1
... 
>>> def add_and_assign():
...     a = 0
...     a = a + 1
... 
>>> dis.dis(inplace_add)
  2           0 LOAD_CONST               1 (0)
              3 STORE_FAST               0 (a)

  3           6 LOAD_FAST                0 (a)
              9 LOAD_CONST               2 (1)
             12 INPLACE_ADD         
             13 STORE_FAST               0 (a)
             16 LOAD_CONST               0 (None)
             19 RETURN_VALUE        
>>> dis.dis(add_and_assign)
  2           0 LOAD_CONST               1 (0)
              3 STORE_FAST               0 (a)

  3           6 LOAD_FAST                0 (a)
              9 LOAD_CONST               2 (1)
             12 BINARY_ADD          
             13 STORE_FAST               0 (a)
             16 LOAD_CONST               0 (None)
             19 RETURN_VALUE

The difference is a INPLACE_ADD versus a BINARY_ADD.

The resulting timings are too close to call which one would be faster:

>>> import timeit
>>> timeit.timeit('inplace_add', 'from __main__ import inplace_add', number=10000000)
0.32667088508605957
>>> timeit.timeit('add_and_assign', 'from __main__ import add_and_assign', number=10000000)
0.34172606468200684

So, in python, the difference is negligible. Don't worry about it.

Upvotes: 20

Dietrich Epp
Dietrich Epp

Reputation: 213338

Yep, but the difference is marginal.

>>> timeit.Timer('x += 1', 'x = 0').timeit(10**8)
5.7387330532073975
>>> timeit.Timer('x = x + 1', 'x = 0').timeit(10**8)
6.04801607131958
>>> timeit.Timer('x += 1', 'x = 0').timeit(10**8)
5.790481090545654
>>> timeit.Timer('x = x + 1', 'x = 0').timeit(10**8)
6.083467960357666

Upvotes: 4

tMC
tMC

Reputation: 19325

Nope

>>> bar = timeit.Timer("a += 1", "a = 0")
>>> bar.timeit(number=1000000)
0.064391136169433594
>>> bar = timeit.Timer("a = a + 1", "a = 0")
>>> bar.timeit(number=1000000)
0.064393997192382812
>>>

Upvotes: 6

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