Is `namedtuple` really as efficient in memory usage as tuples? My test says NO

Question

It is stated in the Python documentation that one of the advantages of namedtuple is that it is as memory-efficient as tuples.

To validate this, I

Answer 1

Doing some investigation myself (with Python 3.6.6). I run into following conclusions:

1. In all three cases (list of tuples, list of named tuples, list of dicts). sys.getsizeof returns size of the list, which stores only references anyway. So you get size: 81528056 in all three cases.

2. Sizes of elementary types are:

   sys.getsizeof((1,2,3)) 72

   sys.getsizeof(point(x=1, y=2, z=3)) 72

   sys.getsizeof(dict(x=1, y=2, z=3)) 240

3. timing is very bad for named tuple:
   list of tuples: 1.8s
   list of named tuples: 10s
   list of dicts: 4.6s

4. Looking to system load I become suspicious about results from getsizeof. After measuring the footprint of the Ptyhon3 process I get:

   test_list = [(i, i+1, i+2) for i in range(10000000)]
   increase by: 1 745 564K
   that is about 175B per element

   test_list_n = [point(x=i, y=i+1, z=i+2) for i in range(10000000)]
   increase by: 1 830 740K
   that is about 183B per element

   test_list_n = [point(x=i, y=i+1, z=i+2) for i in range(10000000)]
   increase by: 2 717 492 K
   that is about 272B per element