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classification
Title: base64 module of Python 3.4 uses 920 kB of memory
Type: resource usage Stage: resolved
Components: Versions: Python 3.5
process
Status: closed Resolution: fixed
Dependencies: Superseder:
Assigned To: Nosy List: Arfrever, loewis, pitrou, python-dev, r.david.murray, serhiy.storchaka, vstinner
Priority: normal Keywords: patch

Created on 2014-03-10 09:35 by vstinner, last changed 2022-04-11 14:57 by admin. This issue is now closed.

Files
File name Uploaded Description Edit
base64_mem.py vstinner, 2014-03-10 09:35
base64_on_demand.patch vstinner, 2014-03-10 10:41 review
base64_lazy_init.patch serhiy.storchaka, 2014-03-10 11:26 review
urlparse_lazy_init.patch serhiy.storchaka, 2014-03-10 11:41 review
base64_urlparse_lazy_init-2.patch vstinner, 2014-03-14 16:01 review
base64_urlparse_lazy_init-3.patch vstinner, 2014-03-14 16:58 review
base64_urlparse_lazy_init-4.patch vstinner, 2014-03-14 17:35 review
base64_urlparse_lazy_init-4.patch serhiy.storchaka, 2014-03-14 17:43 review
Messages (18)
msg213018 - (view) Author: STINNER Victor (vstinner) * (Python committer) Date: 2014-03-10 09:35
According to tracemalloc, "import base64" allocates 920.6 kB of memory. The 3 top locations are:

Lib/base64.py:414: size=420 KiB, count=7226, average=59 B
    _b85chars2 = [(a + b) for a in _b85chars for b in _b85chars]
Lib/base64.py:306: size=420 KiB, count=7226, average=59 B
    _a85chars2 = [(a + b) for a in _a85chars for b in _a85chars]
Lib/base64.py:142: size=59.8 KiB, count=1025, average=60 B
    _b32tab2 = [a + b for a in _b32tab for b in _b32tab]

Compare it to Python 3.3: base64 of Python 3.3 only allocates 10.3 kB. (I installed tracemalloc manually on Python 3.3 to get this number.)

I suggest to initialized these precomputed tables to None, and compute them at the first call to b32encode() / b85encode() / a85encode().

The new Base65 and Ascii85 codecs were added by the issue #17618.

_b32tab2 comes from changeset (1b5ef05d6ced) of issue #17812: "quadratic complexity of base64.b32encode(). Optimize base64.b32encode() and base64.b32decode() (speed up to 3x)." So 3.3 branch is also affected (for the base32 table).
msg213023 - (view) Author: Martin v. Löwis (loewis) * (Python committer) Date: 2014-03-10 10:17
It's a classical time-space trade-off. I'm not sure this is a bug; if it is, the reasonable change (IMO) is to just revert the introduction of these *2 tables, and loop through the output character-by-character.

I'd personally be in favor of such a change (drop the tables). If people think that these functions are too slow, they should propose an extension of the binascii module, rather than micro-optimizing the Python code.
msg213024 - (view) Author: Martin v. Löwis (loewis) * (Python committer) Date: 2014-03-10 10:18
I'm also -0 on delayed creation of the tables. If these encodings are used, the memory overhead will still occur.
msg213025 - (view) Author: STINNER Victor (vstinner) * (Python committer) Date: 2014-03-10 10:21
> I'd personally be in favor of such a change (drop the tables).

I didn't propose to drop the table, but create a table the first time that it is needed.

I never used ascii85 nor base85 nor base32 in my applications. Maybe because ascii85 and base85 are new in Python 3.4? ;-) Python should not waste memory if a function is never called.

I only import base64 module to the base64 codec :) (I don't care if there are more functions if they don't waste my memory.)
msg213026 - (view) Author: STINNER Victor (vstinner) * (Python committer) Date: 2014-03-10 10:41
base64_on_demand.patch: create tables the first time they are needed.

b85decode() already uses such trick to build _b85dec.

Note: a85decode() doesn't use a precomputed table.

> If people think that these functions are too slow, they should propose an extension of the binascii module, rather than micro-optimizing the Python code.

Yes, a C extension may be even faster. But I'm not interested to work on such enhance, I just want to fix the regression in memory usage right now.
msg213027 - (view) Author: Serhiy Storchaka (serhiy.storchaka) * (Python committer) Date: 2014-03-10 11:26
I was more interested in the import time, and it has slightly increased. Memory consumption ((32**2+2*85**2)*sys.getsizeof(b'xx')/2**10 + sys.getsizeof(dict.fromkeys(range(32**2))) + 2*sys.getsizeof(dict.fromkeys(range(85**2))) + 2*(85**2-256)*sys.getsizeof(85**2) < 1MB) was seemed small compared with the overall memory usage of Python (20-25MB), so I were ignored it.

No need for lazy initialization of small tables, and the overhead of the _init_*85_tables() call for every encoding/decoding operation may be too large. Here is simpler patch.
msg213028 - (view) Author: Serhiy Storchaka (serhiy.storchaka) * (Python committer) Date: 2014-03-10 11:41
And here is similar patch for urllib.parse.
msg213029 - (view) Author: STINNER Victor (vstinner) * (Python committer) Date: 2014-03-10 11:50
> Here is simpler patch.

Your patch only changes _*tab2, not the smaller tables.
msg213030 - (view) Author: Serhiy Storchaka (serhiy.storchaka) * (Python committer) Date: 2014-03-10 12:06
Yes, because small tables consume two orders less memory.
msg213075 - (view) Author: Antoine Pitrou (pitrou) * (Python committer) Date: 2014-03-10 19:49
Victor's approach looks fine to me.
msg213564 - (view) Author: STINNER Victor (vstinner) * (Python committer) Date: 2014-03-14 15:28
urlparse_lazy_init.patch looks good, but you should add a comment explaining your change. See my review:
http://bugs.python.org/review/20879/
msg213566 - (view) Author: STINNER Victor (vstinner) * (Python committer) Date: 2014-03-14 16:01
I combined the two patches and I tried to address all comments: base64_urlparse_lazy_init-2.patch.
msg213569 - (view) Author: STINNER Victor (vstinner) * (Python committer) Date: 2014-03-14 16:58
Serhiy wrote on Rietveld:
"As far as this constant is repeated twice, it wastes memory and errorprone."

Oh, I expected marshal to be smart and use references, but it does not.

Here is a simpler patch which initialize all base85 tables at once using a "b85alphabet" variable which simplify also the initialization of the decoder table.
msg213574 - (view) Author: STINNER Victor (vstinner) * (Python committer) Date: 2014-03-14 17:35
Sorry, it took me many tries to write the perfect patch :-) The current code has artificial dependencies between variables and has references to variables when they are not needed in fact.

base64_urlparse_lazy_init-4.patch should be even simpler.
msg213577 - (view) Author: Serhiy Storchaka (serhiy.storchaka) * (Python committer) Date: 2014-03-14 17:43
I don't like base64_urlparse_lazy_init-3.patch at all. It waste memory and time for initializing of non-needed tables in case when only encoding or only decoding is used.

Here is new patch based on base64_urlparse_lazy_init-2.patch. Unlike to my patch, it delays initialization of small tables too. Unlike to Victor's patches it initializes only needed tables and delays initialization of b32 tables.
msg213578 - (view) Author: Serhiy Storchaka (serhiy.storchaka) * (Python committer) Date: 2014-03-14 17:58
Well, our patches are almost same so your patch LGTM (and it has more comments). But note that my initialization of _b32tab2 is a little faster (bytes() is called 32 times instead of 1024).
msg213902 - (view) Author: Roundup Robot (python-dev) (Python triager) Date: 2014-03-17 21:40
New changeset 7093d5758954 by Victor Stinner in branch '3.4':
Issue #20879: Delay the initialization of encoding and decoding tables for
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/7093d5758954

New changeset 06d646935c9a by Victor Stinner in branch 'default':
(Merge 3.4) Issue #20879: Delay the initialization of encoding and decoding
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/06d646935c9a
msg213903 - (view) Author: STINNER Victor (vstinner) * (Python committer) Date: 2014-03-17 21:41
Thanks Serhiy, I merged your last patch with mine. This issue should now be fixed.

As Martin wrote, an enhancement would be to reimplement these functions in C without such table.
History
Date User Action Args
2022-04-11 14:57:59adminsetgithub: 65078
2014-03-17 22:18:31Arfreversetstage: resolved
2014-03-17 21:41:31vstinnersetstatus: open -> closed
resolution: fixed
messages: + msg213903
2014-03-17 21:40:07python-devsetnosy: + python-dev
messages: + msg213902
2014-03-14 17:58:14serhiy.storchakasetmessages: + msg213578
2014-03-14 17:43:58serhiy.storchakasetfiles: + base64_urlparse_lazy_init-4.patch

messages: + msg213577
2014-03-14 17:35:22vstinnersetfiles: + base64_urlparse_lazy_init-4.patch

messages: + msg213574
2014-03-14 16:58:53vstinnersetfiles: + base64_urlparse_lazy_init-3.patch

messages: + msg213569
2014-03-14 16:01:08vstinnersetfiles: + base64_urlparse_lazy_init-2.patch

messages: + msg213566
2014-03-14 15:28:51vstinnersetmessages: + msg213564
2014-03-10 19:49:34pitrousettype: performance -> resource usage
messages: + msg213075
versions: + Python 3.5, - Python 3.3, Python 3.4
2014-03-10 12:06:29serhiy.storchakasetmessages: + msg213030
2014-03-10 11:50:56vstinnersetmessages: + msg213029
2014-03-10 11:41:14serhiy.storchakasetfiles: + urlparse_lazy_init.patch

messages: + msg213028
2014-03-10 11:26:55serhiy.storchakasetfiles: + base64_lazy_init.patch

messages: + msg213027
2014-03-10 10:50:53r.david.murraysetnosy: + r.david.murray
2014-03-10 10:41:21vstinnersetfiles: + base64_on_demand.patch
keywords: + patch
messages: + msg213026
2014-03-10 10:39:16Arfreversetnosy: + Arfrever
2014-03-10 10:21:13vstinnersetmessages: + msg213025
2014-03-10 10:18:40loewissetmessages: + msg213024
2014-03-10 10:17:03loewissetnosy: + loewis
messages: + msg213023
2014-03-10 09:35:27vstinnercreate