Testing string conversion performance in python

output

Wed Jul 30 02:58:53 2014    /tmp/python.string.stats

         2100004 function calls in 1.436 seconds

   Ordered by: internal time

   ncalls  tottime  percall  cumtime  percall filename:lineno(function)
   300000    0.500    0.000    0.529    0.000 random.py:173(randrange)
        1    0.278    0.278    1.436    1.436 foo.py:24(main)
   300000    0.154    0.000    0.683    0.000 random.py:237(randint)
   400000    0.103    0.000    0.103    0.000 {_struct.pack}
   100000    0.094    0.000    0.156    0.000 foo.py:21(four)
   100000    0.088    0.000    0.142    0.000 foo.py:15(two)
   100000    0.077    0.000    0.077    0.000 foo.py:12(one)
   300000    0.054    0.000    0.054    0.000 {chr}
   100000    0.045    0.000    0.085    0.000 foo.py:18(three)
   300000    0.029    0.000    0.029    0.000 {method 'random' of '_random.Random' objects}
   100000    0.014    0.000    0.014    0.000 foo.py:8(zero)
        1    0.002    0.002    0.002    0.002 {range}
        1    0.000    0.000    1.436    1.436 <string>:1(<module>)
        1    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000 {method 'disable' of '_lsprof.Profiler' objects}

run.py

#!/usr/bin/python

import struct
import random
import cProfile
import pstats

def zero(a,b,c):
    # This is just to check the call overhead
    return ''

def one(a,b,c):
    return '%c%c%c' % (a,b,c)

def two(a,b,c):
    return chr(a) + chr(b) + chr(c)

def three(a,b,c):
    return struct.pack("BBB", a,b,c)

def four(a,b,c):
    return struct.pack("B", a) + struct.pack('B',b) + struct.pack("B",c)

def main():
    for x in range(100000):
        a=random.randint(0,255)
        b=random.randint(0,255)
        c=random.randint(0,255)
        zero(a,b,c)
        one(a,b,c)
        two(a,b,c)
        three(a,b,c)
        four(a,b,c)

tmpfile = "/tmp/python.string.stats"
cProfile.run('main()', tmpfile)
p = pstats.Stats(tmpfile)
p.strip_dirs().sort_stats('time').print_stats()