STINNER Victor added the comment: Currently, the code uses Py_ABS(Py_SIZE(x))*PyLong_SHIFT to estimate the upper-bound of the number of bits of the number x. It's a raw estimation, the difference can be up to 29 bits. We may try to compute the exact number of bits, x.bit_length().
Python 3.5 estimate the number of "decimalbase" (10**9) digits using: def decimalbase_digits1(x): bits = size(x) * PyLong_SHIFT return 1 + bits // (3 * _PyLong_DECIMAL_SHIFT) I wrote a test to compute how many digits are overallocated (and unused): 552961 for this function. I'm not sure that "1+" is needed, since 3.0 is already lower than log2(10) (3.32...). If we compute the exact number of bits using the Python 3.5 function, it's a little bit better: def decimalbase_digits2(x): bits = x.bit_length() return 1 + bits // (3 * _PyLong_DECIMAL_SHIFT) => 546250 digits (1% less). You propose a better estimation: def decimalbase_digits3(x): digits = size(x) d = (33 * _PyLong_DECIMAL_SHIFT) // (10 * PyLong_SHIFT - 33 * _PyLong_DECIMAL_SHIFT) return 1 + digits + digits // d With your estimation, only 504243 are overallocated (9% less than Python 3.5 function). But why only using 2 digits for log2(10) estimation? We can more digits: def decimalbase_digits4(x): bits = size(x) * PyLong_SHIFT return bits * 10000 // (33219 * _PyLong_DECIMAL_SHIFT) => 491908 digits (11% less) According to my tests, the best function uses the number of bits and the better estimation of log2(10): def new_decimalbase_digits5(x): bits = x.bit_length() return bits * 10000 // (33219 * _PyLong_DECIMAL_SHIFT) => 483424 digits (13% less) See attached for my tests. ---------- Added file: http://bugs.python.org/file40786/estimate_decimalbase_digits.py _______________________________________ Python tracker <rep...@bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue25402> _______________________________________ _______________________________________________ Python-bugs-list mailing list Unsubscribe: https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-bugs-list/archive%40mail-archive.com