Test speeds of various ways of creating a list of random bits

random_bits_speed_test.py

#!/usr/bin/env python3

''' Test speeds of various ways of creating a list of random bits

    Typical results on a 32bit 2GHz machine running Python 3.6.0 on Linux

    null       : [0.04344886299986683, 0.04375551599878236, 0.04837666000094032]
    zipgen     : [0.28622414100027527, 0.28712629300025583, 0.2921328890006407]
    nextgen    : [0.363577712998449, 0.3746541500004241, 0.3797654469999543]
    randrange  : [1.342143091998878, 1.3589175790002628, 1.3717609110008198]
    randint    : [1.792100284999833, 1.8232857450002484, 1.8753145200007566]

    Written by PM 2Ring 2017.12.09
'''

from timeit import Timer
from random import seed, getrandbits, randrange, randint

#seed(42)

def randbit(blocksize=32):
    while True:
        n = getrandbits(blocksize)
        for _ in range(blocksize):
            yield n & 1
            n >>= 1

num = 1<<10
randbitgen = randbit()

cmds = (
    ('null', '[0 for _ in range(num)]'),
    ('zipgen', '[u for _,u in zip(range(num), randbitgen)]'),
    ('nextgen', '[next(randbitgen) for _ in range(num)]'),
    ('randrange', '[randrange(2) for _ in range(num)]'),
    ('randint', '[randint(0, 1) for _ in range(num)]'),
)

def time_test(loops):
    timings = []
    setup = 'from __main__ import randbitgen, num, randrange, randint'
    for name, cmd in cmds:
        t = Timer(cmd, setup=setup)
        result = sorted(t.repeat(3, loops))
        timings.append((result, name))
    timings.sort()
    for result, name in timings:
        print('{:10} : {}'.format(name, result))

loops = 200
time_test(loops)