Python equivalence to inline functions or macros

Question

I just realized that doing

x.real*x.real+x.imag*x.imag

is three times faster than doing

abs(x)**2

where x

Answer 1

Not exactly what the OP has asked for, but close:

Inliner inlines Python function calls. Proof of concept for this blog post

from inliner import inline

@inline
def add_stuff(x, y):
    return x + y

def add_lots_of_numbers():
    results = []
    for i in xrange(10):
         results.append(add_stuff(i, i+1))

In the above code the add_lots_of_numbers function is converted into this:

def add_lots_of_numbers():
    results = []
    for i in xrange(10):
         results.append(i + i + 1)

Also anyone interested in this question and the complications involved in implementing such optimizer in CPython, might also want to have a look at:

• Issue 10399: AST Optimization: inlining of function calls
• PEP 511 -- API for code transformers (Rejected)