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Optimization Techniques in Python

1. Understanding and Measuring Performance

Introduction to Python Performance Timing and Benchmarking Basics Measuring Function Performance Challenge: Implementing Benchmarking

2. Efficient Use of Data Structures

Lists and NumPy Arrays Sets and Tuples Challenge: Choosing Optimal Data Structures Using the collections Module

3. Optimizing with Python's Built-in Features

Leveraging map() and List Comprehensions Handling Large Files Maximizing Sorting Efficiency

Maximizing Sorting Efficiency

When it comes to sorting in Python, choosing the right technique or approach is crucial for optimizing performance, especially when dealing with large datasets or specific requirements.

Built-in Sorting

Whenever you need to sort a list in Python, except for some rare special cases, it's almost always best to use one of its two highly optimized sorting tools: the sorted() function or the sort() method. Both are implemented in C and use Timsort, a hybrid algorithm that combines merge sort and insertion sort for efficiency.

When to Use:

Use sorted() for general-purpose sorting on any iterable without modifying the original data;
Use sort() when working specifically with a list and in-place modification is acceptable.

Both methods are efficient, but list.sort() may be only slightly faster for very large lists as it avoids creating a new list. However, use sorted() if you need to keep the original list intact.

Partial Sorting with heapq

For cases where you only need the smallest or largest elements of a dataset, sorting the entire data is unnecessary. Python's heapq module provides efficient methods like heapq.nsmallest() and heapq.nlargest() to extract these elements without fully sorting the iterable, making it faster and more memory-efficient.

Let's compare the performance of the sorted() function and the heapq.nsmallest() function for retrieving the 10 smallest numbers** from a list:


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import heapq
import os
decorators = os.system('wget https://codefinity-content-media-v2.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/courses/8d21890f-d960-4129-bc88-096e24211d53/section_1/chapter_3/decorators.py 2>/dev/null')
from decorators import timeit_decorator
import random

# Generate a large list of random integers
numbers = [random.randint(1, 1000000) for _ in range(1000000)]

@timeit_decorator(number=10)
def partial_sort_heapq():
    return heapq.nsmallest(10, numbers)

@timeit_decorator(number=10)
def partial_sort_sorted():
    return sorted(numbers)[:10]

# Compare performance
heapq_result = partial_sort_heapq()
sorted_result = partial_sort_sorted()

# Ensure both methods give the same result
print(heapq_result == sorted_result)

As you can see, in our particular example heapq.nsmallest() is roughly 10 times faster.

However, if the number of largest or smallest elements (n) you want to retrieve is close to the total number of elements in the list, heapq is often slower than using the sorted() function or the .sort() method.

For example, let's now retrieve 100000 smallest elements of the list:


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import heapq
import os
decorators = os.system('wget https://codefinity-content-media-v2.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/courses/8d21890f-d960-4129-bc88-096e24211d53/section_1/chapter_3/decorators.py 2>/dev/null')
from decorators import timeit_decorator
import random

# Generate a large list of random integers
numbers = [random.randint(1, 1000000) for _ in range(1000000)]

@timeit_decorator(number=10)
def partial_sort_heapq():
    return heapq.nsmallest(100000, numbers)

@timeit_decorator(number=10)
def partial_sort_sorted():
    return sorted(numbers)[:100000]

# Compare performance
heapq_result = partial_sort_heapq()
sorted_result = partial_sort_sorted()

# Ensure both methods give the same result
print(heapq_result == sorted_result)

The sorted() function in this case clearly outperforms heapq.

1. You need to sort an entire list of numbers **while keeping the original list intact**. Which sorting function/method should you use?

2. You are reviewing a dataset of **500,000 sales records**. To identify the **20 highest revenue-generating transactions**, which approach is likely to be faster and more memory-efficient?

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