I've got the following results on my desktop PC (Win7/Python2.7.5): C:\src\Python>python -m timeit -cvn3 -r3 "execfile('fastwrite2.py')" raw times: 123 126 125 3 loops, best of 3: 41 sec per loop
C:\src\Python>python -m timeit -cvn3 -r3 "execfile('fastwrite5.py')" raw times: 34 34.3 34 3 loops, best of 3: 11.3 sec per loop C:\src\Python>python -m timeit -cvn3 -r3 "execfile('fastwrite6.py')" raw times: 0.4 0.447 0.391 3 loops, best of 3: 130 msec per loop If you can just copy a preexisting file it will surely increase the speed to the levels you need, but doing the cStringIO operations can reduce the time in 72%. Strangely I just realised that the time it takes to complete such scripts is the same no matter what hard drive I choose to run them. The results are the same for an SSD (main drive) and a HDD. I think it's very strange to take 11.3s to write 50MB (4.4MB/s) sequentially on a SSD which is capable of 140MB/s. Is that a Python problem? Why does it take the same time on the HDD? ### fastwrite2.py ### <<< this is your code size = 50*1024*1024 value = 0 filename = 'fastwrite2.dat' with open(filename, "w") as f: while f.tell()< size: f.write("{0}\n".format(value)) value += 1 f.close() ### fastwrite5.py ### import cStringIO size = 50*1024*1024 value = 0 filename = 'fastwrite5.dat' x = 0 b = cStringIO.StringIO() while x < size: line = '{0}\n'.format(value) b.write(line) value += 1 x += len(line)+1 f = open(filename, 'w') f.write(b.getvalue()) f.close() b.close() ### fastwrite6.py ### import shutil src = 'fastwrite.dat' dst = 'fastwrite6.dat' shutil.copyfile(src, dst) ---------------------------------------- > Date: Fri, 17 May 2013 07:58:43 -0400 > From: da...@davea.name > To: python-list@python.org > Subject: Re: How to write fast into a file in python? > > On 05/17/2013 12:35 AM, lokeshkopp...@gmail.com wrote: >> On Friday, May 17, 2013 8:50:26 AM UTC+5:30, lokesh...@gmail.com wrote: >>> I need to write numbers into a file upto 50mb and it should be fast >>> >>> can any one help me how to do that? >>> >>> i had written the following code.. >>> >>> <SNIP> >>> value = 0 >>> >>> with open(filename, "w") as f: >>> >>> while f.tell()< size: >>> >>> f.write("{0}\n".format(value)) >>> <SNIP more double-spaced nonsense from googlegroups> > If you must use googlegroups, at least read this > http://wiki.python.org/moin/GoogleGroupsPython. >>> >>> >>> it takes about 20sec i need 5 to 10 times less than that. >> size = 50mb >> > > Most of the time is spent figuring out whether the file has reached its > limit size. If you want Python to go fast, just specify the data. On > my Linux system, it takes 11 seconds to write the first 6338888 values, > which is just under 50mb. If I write the obvious loop, writing that > many values takes .25 seconds. > > -- > DaveA > -- > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list > -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list