Why is an in-place integer operation like a *= b slower than a = a * b?

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I know integers are immutable so the computed values do not modify the original integers. Therefore the in-place operations should do the same as the simple operations, 1. compute the value and 2. reassign the value back to the variable. But why are the in-place operations slower than the simple ones?

import timeit
print("a = a + 1: ", end="")
print(timeit.timeit("for i in range(100): a = a + 1", setup="a = 0"))
print("a += 1: ", end="")
print(timeit.timeit("for i in range(100): a += 1", setup="a = 0"))

print("a = a - 1: ", end="")
print(timeit.timeit("for i in range(100): a = a - 1", setup="a = 0"))
print("a -= 1: ", end="")
print(timeit.timeit("for i in range(100): a -= 1", setup="a = 0"))

print("a = a * 1: ", end="")
print(timeit.timeit("for i in range(100): a = a * 1", setup="a = 1"))
print("a *= 1: ", end="")
print(timeit.timeit("for i in range(100): a *= 1", setup="a = 1"))

print("a = a // 1: ", end="")
print(timeit.timeit("for i in range(100): a = a // 1", setup="a = 1"))
print("a //= 1: ", end="")
print(timeit.timeit("for i in range(100): a //= 1", setup="a = 1"))

Output:

a = a + 1: 2.922127154
a += 1: 2.9701245480000003
a = a - 1: 2.9568866799999993
a -= 1: 3.1065419050000003
a = a * 1: 2.2483990140000003
a *= 1: 2.703524648
a = a // 1: 2.534561783000001
a //= 1: 2.6582312889999997

All the in-place operations are slower than the simple ones. Addition has the smallest difference while multiplication has the greatest.

python
2 Answers

There may be a problem in that experiment: a single for-loop with 100 iterations and only containing an assignment statement like a=a+1 or a+=1 normally will not take that long to run (more than a second).

Compare those results using timeit to the following direct execution of the same for-loop:

def not_in_place(n, a=0):
    for i in range(n): a = a + 1
    return a

def in_place(n, a=0):
    for i in range(n): a += 1
    return a

As expected, it takes almost 100 million iterations to get similar times (a magnitude of seconds):

not_in_place(100_000_000)
in_place(100_000_000)

(Edit: As pointed out in the comment: the timed statement, that contains 100 iterations, was wrapped in a million-iteration loop.)

We still need to establish which is faster: in-place (a+=1) or not in-place (a=a+1).

To do so, we need to observe how both cases behave given an increasing number of iterations:

import perfplot
perfplot.bench(
    n_range=[2**k for k in range(26)],
    setup=lambda n: n,
    kernels=[not_in_place, in_place],
    labels=["a = a + 1", "a += 1"],
).show()

The observed difference in the first 100 iterations using timeit couldn't be replicated in large scale runs using the same for-loop code in callback functions for each run:

enter image description here

Most importantly: It seems that the time difference between both cases (in-place and not in-place) is invariant to the number of iterations.

The same goes for the other operators: (-, *, etc.):

enter image description here enter image description here

user_146971430

Short answer

The inplace operation does slightly more work because it has to determine whether a custom inplace operation has been defined or whether to fallback to the normal binary operation.

Timings

For me, the timings are almost identical:

$ python3.9 -m timeit -s 'a=1' 'a *= 1'
10000000 loops, best of 5: 27.6 nsec per loop

$ python3.9 -m timeit -s 'a=1' 'a = a * 1'
10000000 loops, best of 5: 27.8 nsec per loop

Explanation

I would expect inplace version to be microscopically slower because the dispatch code first checks for an inplace slot to be defined and then falls back to the regular binary operation.

It takes a little time to determine that the inplace slot has not been defined for immutable objects like int and float.

That said, almost all of the rest of the code is the same which is why the timings are so close.

Dive into the source

The relevant code is in Objects/abstract.c:

/* The in-place operators are defined to fall back to the 'normal',
   non in-place operations, if the in-place methods are not in place.

   - If the left hand object has the appropriate struct members, and
     they are filled, call the appropriate function and return the
     result.  No coercion is done on the arguments; the left-hand object
     is the one the operation is performed on, and it's up to the
     function to deal with the right-hand object.

   - Otherwise, in-place modification is not supported. Handle it exactly as
     a non in-place operation of the same kind.

   */

static PyObject *
binary_iop1(PyObject *v, PyObject *w, const int iop_slot, const int op_slot
            )
{
    PyNumberMethods *mv = Py_TYPE(v)->tp_as_number;
    if (mv != NULL) {
        binaryfunc slot = NB_BINOP(mv, iop_slot);
        if (slot) {
            PyObject *x = (slot)(v, w);
            if (x != Py_NotImplemented) {
                return x;
            }
            Py_DECREF(x);
        }
    }
    return binary_op1(v, w, op_slot);
}
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