⚡️ Speed up function word_frequency
by 22%
#64
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📄 22% (0.22x) speedup for
word_frequency
insrc/dsa/various.py
⏱️ Runtime :
724 microseconds
→595 microseconds
(best of930
runs)📝 Explanation and details
The optimized code achieves a 21% speedup by replacing the manual dictionary construction loop with Python's built-in
Counter
class from the collections module.Key optimization applied:
if word in frequency
), and either increments or initializes the count. This involves multiple dictionary lookups and assignments.Counter
is implemented in C and optimized specifically for counting operations, avoiding the overhead of Python's interpreted loop execution.Why this leads to speedup:
The original code performs O(n) dictionary lookups where each lookup has potential hash collision overhead. The line profiler shows that 64.4% of the total time (33.1% + 31.3%) is spent on the loop iteration and dictionary membership checks. Counter eliminates this by using optimized internal counting mechanisms that batch these operations more efficiently.
Performance characteristics by test case type:
test_large_repeated_words
at 69.9% faster)The optimization trades initialization overhead for loop efficiency, making it most effective on larger datasets with word repetition.
✅ Correctness verification report:
🌀 Generated Regression Tests and Runtime
To edit these changes
git checkout codeflash/optimize-word_frequency-mdpcmb3p
and push.