Hi all,
Recently there was a thread about function composition in Python (and
this was probably not the first). The fast way to create a
(anonymous) composite function
f1 o f2 o ... o fn
in Python is via
lambda x: f1(f2(...fn(x)...)),
but according to some this is neither the most compact nor the most
readable. Below I define a 'compose' function such that the above can
be written
compose(f1, f2, ...., fn),
the resulting function being as fast as the lambda version (or maybe
faster?). 'getcomposer' is a helper function (which in most cases
will amount to a dictionary lookup).
----------------------------------
def getcomposer(nfunc, _cache={}):
"getcomposer(n) -> lambda f1, ..., fn:(lambda x: f1(...fn(x)...))"
try:
return _cache[nfunc]
except KeyError:
fnames = ['f%s' % i for i in range(nfunc)]
call = ''.join('%s(' % f for f in fnames)
args = ','.join(fnames)
cstr = 'lambda %s:(lambda x:%sx%s)' % (args, call, ')'*nfunc)
composer = _cache[nfunc] = eval(cstr)
return composer
def compose(*functions):
"compose(f1, ..., fn) -> lambda x: f1(f2(...fn(x)...))"
return getcomposer(len(functions))(*functions)
# Test
def double(x): return 2*x
def square(x): return x**2
def succ(x): return x+1
f1 = compose(double, square, succ, float)
f2 = lambda x: double(square(succ(float(x))))
def benchmark(f, n=1000000):
from time import time
from itertools import imap
t0 = time()
for _ in imap(f1, xrange(n)): pass
t1 = time()
return t1-t0
print 'compose', benchmark(f1)
print 'lambda ', benchmark(f2)
----------------------------------
marigold:python arno$ python -i simple_compose.py
compose 1.84630298615
lambda 1.86365509033
>>> import dis
>>> dis.dis(f1)
1 0 LOAD_DEREF 0 (f0)
3 LOAD_DEREF 3 (f1)
6 LOAD_DEREF 1 (f2)
9 LOAD_DEREF 2 (f3)
12 LOAD_FAST 0 (x)
15 CALL_FUNCTION 1
18 CALL_FUNCTION 1
21 CALL_FUNCTION 1
24 CALL_FUNCTION 1
27 RETURN_VALUE
>>> dis.dis(f2)
23 0 LOAD_GLOBAL 0 (double)
3 LOAD_GLOBAL 1 (square)
6 LOAD_GLOBAL 2 (succ)
9 LOAD_GLOBAL 3 (float)
12 LOAD_FAST 0 (x)
15 CALL_FUNCTION 1
18 CALL_FUNCTION 1
21 CALL_FUNCTION 1
24 CALL_FUNCTION 1
27 RETURN_VALUE
f1 and f2 are almost exaclty the same but array lookups (LOAD_DEREFs)
in f1 replace dictionary lookups (LOAD_GLOBALs) in f2. A C version of
'compose' could easily be written that doesn't require the use of a
python lambda-function (as created by 'getcomposer').
--
Arnaud
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