While-loop with if-statement faster than while-loop

Question

I am doing some testing regarding the speed of if-statements in loops and their effect on speed. Something I found was that consistently, the if-statement improved performance. My code:

import time
t = time.time

start = t()
x = 0
while x < 10000000:
    x += 1
time1 = t()
x = 0
while x < 10000000:
    x += 1
    if True:
        pass
time2 = t()

print(start)
print(time1 - start) # Time for simple while-loop
print(time2 - time1) # Time for while+if

A sample output would be:

1355517837.993
1.7850000858306885
1.7209999561309814

Which is completely counter-intuitive. The while-if-loop is working ever-so-slightly faster than the standard while-loop. This happens almost every time I run it; perhaps 1 in 20 times take longer. Does anyone know why?

Answer 1

The dis shows that there are more steps to the if statement while loop.

In [4]: dis.dis(t2)
  2           0 LOAD_CONST               1 (0)
              3 STORE_FAST               0 (x)

  3           6 SETUP_LOOP              26 (to 35)
        >>    9 LOAD_FAST                0 (x)
             12 LOAD_CONST               2 (10000000)
             15 COMPARE_OP               0 (<)
             18 POP_JUMP_IF_FALSE       34

  4          21 LOAD_FAST                0 (x)
             24 LOAD_CONST               3 (1)
             27 INPLACE_ADD
             28 STORE_FAST               0 (x)
             31 JUMP_ABSOLUTE            9
        >>   34 POP_BLOCK
        >>   35 LOAD_CONST               0 (None)
             38 RETURN_VALUE

In [5]: dis.dis(t1)
  2           0 LOAD_CONST               1 (0)
              3 STORE_FAST               0 (x)

  3           6 SETUP_LOOP              35 (to 44)
        >>    9 LOAD_FAST                0 (x)
             12 LOAD_CONST               2 (10000000)
             15 COMPARE_OP               0 (<)
             18 POP_JUMP_IF_FALSE       43

  4          21 LOAD_FAST                0 (x)
             24 LOAD_CONST               3 (1)
             27 INPLACE_ADD
             28 STORE_FAST               0 (x)

  5          31 LOAD_GLOBAL              0 (True)
             34 POP_JUMP_IF_FALSE        9

  6          37 JUMP_ABSOLUTE            9
             40 JUMP_ABSOLUTE            9
        >>   43 POP_BLOCK
        >>   44 LOAD_CONST               0 (None)
             47 RETURN_VALUE

Answer 2

I'd guess that the compiler would remove the if True block since it is constant.

When I run I get mostly the opposite results from you. I may just be random effects of the execution environment.

1355519587.2 0.832797050476 1.04382395744

1355519590.03 0.863899946213 1.09347200394

1355519593.72 0.831655025482 1.05389809608

1355519599.71 0.831452131271 1.41783499718

1355519602.99 0.815280914307 1.05724310875

1355519605.72 0.826404094696 1.05700492859

1355519608.94 0.827296972275 1.07807898521