Python's "methodcaller" is very useful

Today we're going to be discussing another very useful function that I just recently learned about in Python!
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[@Indently]

Hello everyone! As a few of you pointed out, my benchmark was wrong. I didn't use methodcaller() directly inside the test giving it an unfair advantage from the start. I'll try to get people to check my tests next time before uploading the video, sorry about that bit of inconsistency in this video!

[@tacticalassaultanteater9678]

It's just a lambda, jesus.

[@gorandev]

3:18

[@tacticalassaultanteater9678]

​​@@gorandev1. No, once you know what a lambda is, a lambda is not more confusing than a custom std function that only python has, and of which python has so many that even seasoned developers don't know them all. 2. The performance difference arises from the lambda being re-instantiated despite none of its bindings changing. Promoting lambda construction to the scope of the lowest bound variable is an easy optimization that isn't implemented in Python because if you cared about that little difference you should probably not be using Python.

[@tengun]

Just assign the lambda to a variable before using. It's gonna be the same performance.

[@sadhlife]

​@@tacticalassaultanteater9678 it's not just that, methodcaller (and partial and itemgetter and others) are intentionally early binding while lambda is intentionally late binding, due to conventions in other languages and how people expected them to behave. and having two syntaxes for two separate behaviours is also kinda nice as it lets you choose which one you need for your usecase.

[@callbettersaul]

I tried your exact tests and got 0.09 for methodcaller and 0.15 for lambda. However, when I refactored the tests to make them more fair (move lambda declaration outside as well), they both resulted in 0.09.

[@coladock]

Complied into bytecode and compare the instructions is also a good choice. I'm not familiar with though😊

[@__wouks__]

As far as I know "filter" is lazy and actually nothing happened. Those filter functions should have also been wrapped with list in order to actually use filter.

[@spotlight-kyd]

Yeah, spotted that same test difference immediately and did the same refactoring and used 'sorted' instead of 'filter'. Timings for methodcaller vs lambda are virtually identical.

[@jonathanfeinberg7304]

Wouldn't iterator expression be shorter and a bit more readable? Like [name for name in names if name.startswith("b")] No methodcaller, magic strings, filter, nor list casting. Probably faster too since fewer distinct operations take place. For the sort example I agree that methodcaller could be useful.

[@fcolecumberri]

Also since startswith in methodcaller is a string, it can't be validated by anything.

[@oommggdude]

The point of this video is not to show the easiest way to perform the specific task of filtering names starting with B. It's simply a demo of methodcaller....

[@dandyddz]

I think, "Probably faster too since fewer distinct operations take place" is right for 3.11+ , but I am not sure about the older versions of python. Here are the code samples I ran with python 3.11 with the results: 1: from timeit import repeat list_to_filter = [ 'Why', 'didnt', 'you', 'put', '"from operator import methodcaller"', 'and', 'the', 'code', 'related', 'to', 'the', 'initialization', 'of', 'the', '"methodcaller"', 'object', 'there?', 'I', 'aint', 'love', 'that' ] warm_up_code = 'for i in range(10): pass' lambda_code = ''' list(filter(lambda x: x.startswith('a'), list_to_filter)) ''' operator_code = ''' from operator import methodcaller list(filter(methodcaller('startswith', 'a'), list_to_filter)) ''' list_comprehension_code = ''' [s for s in list_to_filter if s.startswith('a')] ''' g = {'list_to_filter': list_to_filter} warm_up_r = min(repeat(warm_up_code)) print(f'{warm_up_r = :.5f}') operator_r = min(repeat(operator_code, globals=g)) print(f'{operator_r = :.5f}') lc_r = min(repeat(list_comprehension_code, globals=g)) print(f'{lc_r = :.5f}') lambda_r = min(repeat(lambda_code, globals=g)) print(f'{lambda_r = :.5f}') warm_up_r = 0.20486 operator_r = 3.08152 lc_r = 1.82864 lambda_r = 2.47760 2: from timeit import repeat list_to_filter = ['asd', 'asdmkalsdas', 'lsadmasd', 'klasd', 'amsd'] warm_up_code = 'for i in range(10): pass' lambda_code = ''' list(filter(lambda x: x.startswith('a'), list_to_filter)) ''' operator_code = ''' from operator import methodcaller list(filter(methodcaller('startswith', 'a'), list_to_filter)) ''' list_comprehension_code = ''' [s for s in list_to_filter if s.startswith('a')] ''' g = {'list_to_filter': list_to_filter} warm_up_r = min(repeat(warm_up_code)) print(f'{warm_up_r = :.5f}') operator_r = min(repeat(operator_code, globals=g)) print(f'{operator_r = :.5f}') lc_r = min(repeat(list_comprehension_code, globals=g)) print(f'{lc_r = :.5f}') lambda_r = min(repeat(lambda_code, globals=g)) print(f'{lambda_r = :.5f}') warm_up_r = 0.20873 operator_r = 1.51674 lc_r = 0.60170 lambda_r = 0.79107

[@callbettersaul]

@@fcolecumberri No one is forcing you to pass the method as a magic string.

[@dandyddz]

@@callbettersaul What? What do you think he is talking about? I guess, about the operator.methodcaller. And when you run this (3.11): import operator m = operator.methodcaller(str.startswith, 'A') list(filter(m, ['asdsd', 'ASd'])) You get: Traceback (most recent call last): File "... .py", line 3, in m = operator.methodcaller(str.startswith, 'A') ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ TypeError: method name must be a string

[@Qbe_Root]

def methodcaller(methodname: str, *args, **kwargs): return lambda obj: obj[methodname](*args, **kwargs)

[@InforSpirit]

There is two way to reference to class method in python: a: str a.startswith() and str.startswith(a) latter is the form which IDE can understand inside of lambdas and type reference it properly. lambda a: str.startswith(a, 'B') Thousand times cleaner and not error prone, than using methodcaller and strings, which itself is just complex wrapper over getattr() function..

[@callbettersaul]

or you could use str.startswith.__name__ with methodcaller to eliminate the magic strings and potential errors

[@Master_of_Chess_Shorts]

thanks again for this short, I like your approach for digging up the Python modules that are not well known or used

[@herberttlbd]

Priming the interpreter in bencmarking is meant to account for cache effects. I don't know how timeit.repeat works but since it is being given a string then I'd imagine it is reparsing every run. That the time difference between the two is close to the size difference, I'd suggest not all variables are being addressed.

[@felicytatomaszewska2934]

It always good to know what exists in programming language. You never know when you may need it.

[@ZimoNitrome]

someone must have already asked but what about the pythonic way of list comprehension? filtered = [n for n in names if n.startswith('B')]

[@iestyn129]

hopefully in the future you’ll be able to use a method descriptor instead of just a string of the function name. passing str.startswith instead of ‘startswith’ makes more sense to me, it would also insure that you are using the correct type aswell

[@joshix833]

That would just be like partial but without providing the first argument

[@DuncanBooth]

For that I would use `partial(str.startswith, 'B')` rather than methodcaller. The only times you would need methodcaller would be if the list had mixed types that shared the same method (even if they have a common base class you need late binding to get the correct method for each element) or perhaps if the method name is actually the result of an expression (though even there with a single type in the list you can use partial with getattr).

[@iestyn129]

@@DuncanBooth ah i see, you learn something new everyday

[@joshix833]

@@DuncanBooth partial(str.startswith, 'B') does something different to methodcaller. That binds 'B' to self and because of that checks if 'B' startswith the other strings. That's not what you want...

[@callbettersaul]

You can pass in str.startswith.__name__ to methodcaller and it will work.

[@Sinke_100]

I think it's cool to sometimes use build in, like for example I used permutations in one of recent projects and it is much more optimised then write your own. For this though it's easy to write alternative, but it's nice to know that it has slightly better performance. Even though I think difference is minimal compared to permutations. I guess it depends on project and what you use it for. Personaly since not everyone uses this, lambda could be more readable

[@EyalShalev]

IMHO if you care about a 30ms performance improvement, you should switch to a more performant algorithm/language. Either by rewriting your application or use c binding for specific operations.

[@blahblah49000]

And that's 30 ms over 1 million iterations, too.

[@twelvethis3979]

I'm not convinced to use methodcaller due to would-be performance improvements. 99 percent of the time Python's standard performance will be good enough. I was wondering, though: could you give an example where it has advantages to use methodcaller from a software engineering perspective?

[@thisoldproperty]

I sometimes wonder if there is any caching going on in the background when I perform the timeit test on something. Either at the programming or hardware layers. It'd be interesting to prove if this is, or is not the case. Another great short , to the point no nonsense video. Thank you.

[@frankfrei6848]

Hiding functions in strings. Just had a flashback to the Eighties when we could run functions from a string in the ZX Spectrum's BASIC. Beautiful! 😂 Always irked me that C64 BASIC didn't have that.

[@rondamon4408]

Can I use methodcaller to call a lambda function?

[@photon6156]

The testing part was... bad. It doesn't evaluate filter, it just creates the filter object, so all the difference is in the compilation time (not the c-like compilation, python just creates byte code from function). So the main reason, why the second is much slower is because it has to compile lambda. And that's why one should avoid redeclaring the same functions/lambdas in a loop. If you pass lambda as global, it should show that time is the same. Evaluating `filter` also should be the same. Warming up the interpreter seems kinda unneeded, but I wouldn't be surprised if it yields more stable results. About the method itself - I see it kinda megatively, mostly because the ide won't hint the method name (since it's a string) and it also won't deduce the result type (and type hinting just greatly reduces the number of bugs). Otherwise, the method seems convenient though

[@Indently]

It was a huge oversight on my part, I need to make sure people check my tests next time before I share them. Thanks for bringing it up :)

[@Indently]

I heard a lot of mixed opinions on warming up the interpreter. On my computer it leads to more consistent results, on my friends computer it doesn't really do anything, so at the end of the day I just thought, it can't hurt to have it. Maybe it varies from Python version, implementation, computer specs, etc etc.

[@tengun]

Exactly.

[@glensmith491]

Other ways to do this but this is the easiest one to understand. For example, I had to be told what partial does but I pretty much knew what methodcaller did by just looking at the syntax.

[@fyrweorm]

I'm new to python, can someone explain what is the warm up? what does it do? or point to me to what shouls I search for in order to find more

[@TheLolle97]

Why not use partial(str.startswith, "B") ? Would be easier to understand IMO and also not throw static code analysis out the window by using strings to access members...

[@joshix833]

partial(str.startswith, 'B') does something different to methodcaller. That binds 'B' to self and because of that checks if 'B' startswith the other strings. That's not what you want...

[@callbettersaul]

Easier to understand, perhaps. The only problem is that IT DOESN'T WORK. partial(str.startswith, "B") results in "B" being the self parameter (like in "B".startswith(...)), but we need it to be the second argument. You can't fill positional arguments the other way around with partial. Also, you can easily use methodcaller without using magic strings as well (str.startswith.__name__).

[@TheLolle97]

Ahh sorry I meant partial(str.startswith, value="B"). That should work.

[@TheLolle97]

Point is you can always achieve the same thing with partial, because methods are just functions with a bound self parameter in Python.

[@TheLolle97]

Nevermind. I was wrong, sorry. functools.partial does not work for accessing positional args by name, which quite surprises me tbh. I still prefer the lambda solution though because attribute access via strings is the enemy 🙃

[@cmcintyre3600]

Wait, what does “warm up the interpreter” mean?

[@alexanderlevakin9001]

This is foreplay for programmers.

[@emman100]

@@alexanderlevakin9001 🤣🤣

[@timelschner8451]

How does the methodcaller knows that it should use string methods? or does it only work with strings?

[@callbettersaul]

It doesn't know what methods to use. It probably uses the built-in getattr function. getattr('Bob', 'startswith')('B') is the same as 'Bob'.startswith('B').

[@bradentoone895]

You don’t have to “warm up” the interpreter to my knowledge - the python interpreter only has a startup time delay that varies, not the actual interpreter speed.

[@blahblah49000]

AFAICT from timeit's docs, it handles that anyway. timeit.timeit is probably what should be generally used.

[@nouche]

Readability counts.

[@blenderpanzi]

Ok, I fixed the bugs in the test code (noticed by people in the comment section) that caused it to do nothing *and* to be unfair (constructing methodcaller outside of the test but lambda inside, filter() is lazy and thus the function was *never* called) and got these numbers (Python 3.9.9): method caller: 1.045 lambda: 1.063 With names *= 10: method caller: 6.386 lambda: 6.529 I.e. only a very minimal difference. Here the full code: from collections import deque from operator import methodcaller from timeit import repeat names = ['Bob', 'James', 'Billy', 'Sandra', 'Blake'] def consume(iterator): deque(iterator, maxlen=0) starts_with_b_method_caller = methodcaller('startswith', 'B') starts_with_b_lambda = lambda name: name.startswith('B') warm_up = ''' consume(range(3)) ''' method_caller_test = ''' consume(filter(starts_with_b_method_caller, names)) ''' lambda_test = ''' consume(filter(starts_with_b_lambda, names)) ''' warm_up_time = min(repeat(warm_up, globals=globals())) method_caller_time = min(repeat(method_caller_test, globals=globals())) lambda_time = min(repeat(lambda_test, globals=globals())) print(f'method caller: {method_caller_time:8.3f}') print(f'lambda: {lambda_time:8.3f}')

[@oommggdude]

For the people saying you can just use partial, it won't work on objects like in this example, i.e. strings, functions are suitable for partial, functions called on an instance for methodcaller.

[@callbettersaul]

What are you talking about? Partial works perfectly with objects and their methods. It just won't work in this case, because partial doesn't allow to specify the position of a positional argument. Like for example, you can't use partial to create an equivalent function to lambda x: str.startswith(x, 'b').

[@oommggdude]

​@@callbettersaul Exactly, like this example... Partial isnt great for funcs designed to be called on instances. The issue lies in whether the func supports using keyword arguments.

[@callbettersaul]

@@oommggdude Partial is great for any function or method, for which you need to provide arguments in the same order as the function's/method's signature declares the params. Or if it allows keyword arguments. But whether it's a function or method is 100% irrelevant. A method bound to an instance is just another function, but with an instance as the first positional parameter.

[@rishiraj2548]

Thanks 👍👍

[@gardnmi]

I could see this as a better alternative to exec. Definitely didn't know this existed.

[@callbettersaul]

First of all, I've never seen a situation, where there isn't an alternative to exec. Secondly, this is rather an alternative to lambda and not necessarily a better one.

[@SusanAmberBruce]

Very interesting

[@longphan6548]

4:10 Was just about to say "So basically a glorified lambda 😂".

[@edivaldoluisbonfim3194]

what IDE are you using ?

[@oommggdude]

PyCharm

[@samanazadi8952]

I think average or median of the times took is a better criteria.

[@FighterAceee94]

Do you ever worry about these kinds of "syntactic sugar" functions being changed or deprecated in future Python releases? It could also get out of hand when using a lot of different ones, and then having to check each one in release notes when updating your project Python version.

[@Indently]

It's the operator module, it will probably get deprecated when Python becomes obsolete.

[@tubero911]

Another feature that programmers can misuse to create injection flaws in their code?

[@joshix833]

I think your benchmark is flawed. You create the lambda in the benchmark and the methodcaller outside of it. Additionally taking the min is probably a bad idea. min, max, mean and average are all good to know. Why didn't you use timeit and directly passed function objects that do the things instead of code as string?

[@callbettersaul]

Yup, they're flawed. I tried the benchmark exactly like he did and results were 0.09 for methodcaller and 0.15 for lambda, but upon declaring that lambda outside as well, the lambda time dropped to 0.09.

[@Indently]

Taking the average is a common misconception for benchmarks, it doesn't tell you the fastest possible time, but generalises it.

[@Indently]

but you two are right, AGH, I should have created the method caller directly inside the test. Midnight coding got me once again.

[@joshix833]

@@Indently yes only average isn't enough, but only min also isn't.

[@SimplyWondering]

@@Indently In future I think with testing it would also be good to use a more advanced profiler. Im a huge fan of the timeit function, it will just give you a bettter variety of statistics and prevents some common mistakes in profiling. PS: do you have a discord, id be interested in joining

[@Coding_Fun22]

Hi! I got 'Python: The Professional Guide For Beginners (2024 Edition)' and 'The Complete Guide To Mastering Python In 2024' and I am very excited to start my journey but, out of which two should I start first?

[@Indently]

I would start with: The Professional Guide For Beginners More realistic and better explanations since it's my most recent course. You don't need both though, so feel free to refund The Complete Guide To Mastering Python In 2024 since a most of it is repeating the same content :)

[@Coding_Fun22]

@@Indently :D

[@blahblah49000]

Protip: Just dive in. Try one and then switch if it isn't helping you enough. The attitude of "ask, wait for answer, then try" will hold you back in programming and learning.

[@craxissx8283]

i think lambda is better for solid principles

[@saadzahem]

import operator as op

[@dandyddz]

Ran this with 3.11: from timeit import repeat list_to_filter = [ 'Why', 'didnt', 'you', 'put', '"from operator import methodcaller"', 'and', 'the', 'code', 'related', 'to', 'the', 'initialization', 'of', 'the', '"methodcaller"', 'object', 'there?', 'I', 'aint', 'love', 'that' ] warm_up_code = 'for i in range(10): pass' lambda_code = ''' list(filter(lambda x: x.startswith('a'), list_to_filter)) ''' operator_code = ''' from operator import methodcaller list(filter(methodcaller('startswith', 'a'), list_to_filter)) ''' list_comprehension_code = ''' [s for s in list_to_filter if s.startswith('a')] ''' g = {'list_to_filter': list_to_filter} warm_up_r = min(repeat(warm_up_code)) print(f'{warm_up_r = :.5f}') operator_r = min(repeat(operator_code, globals=g)) print(f'{operator_r = :.5f}') lc_r = min(repeat(list_comprehension_code, globals=g)) print(f'{lc_r = :.5f}') lambda_r = min(repeat(lambda_code, globals=g)) print(f'{lambda_r = :.5f}') Here is what I got: warm_up_r = 0.20486 operator_r = 3.08152 lc_r = 1.82864 lambda_r = 2.47760

[@joshix833]

3:32 the annotation of the filtered variable is really bad. It loses all the information about the contents of the iterable. Annotating it as collections.abc.Iterable[str] would be better.

[@Nip403]

This is actually pretty neat

[@godwinv4838]

hello sir

[@tinahalder8416]

Just use lambda....

[@Indently]

If you watch the entire video, I cover that part :)

[@emman100]

🤣🤣😂😂

[@iestyn129]

python 🤠

[@bozo_456]

What software