When is not a good time to use python generators?

Question

This is rather the inverse of What can you use Python generator functions for?: python generators, generator expressions, and the itertools module are some of m

Answer 1

I've never found a situation where generators would hinder what you're trying to do. There are, however, plenty of instances where using generators would not help you any more than not using them.

For example:

sorted(xrange(5))

Does not offer any improvement over:

sorted(range(5))

Answer 2

As far as performance is concerned, I can't think of any times that you would want to use a list over a generator.

Answer 3

Regarding performance: if using psyco, lists can be quite a bit faster than generators. In the example below, lists are almost 50% faster when using psyco.full()

import psyco
import time
import cStringIO

def time_func(func):
    """The amount of time it requires func to run"""
    start = time.clock()
    func()
    return time.clock() - start

def fizzbuzz(num):
    """That algorithm we all know and love"""
    if not num % 3 and not num % 5:
        return "%d fizz buzz" % num
    elif not num % 3:
        return "%d fizz" % num
    elif not num % 5:
        return "%d buzz" % num
    return None

def with_list(num):
    """Try getting fizzbuzz with a list comprehension and range"""
    out = cStringIO.StringIO()
    for fibby in [fizzbuzz(x) for x in range(1, num) if fizzbuzz(x)]:
        print >> out, fibby
    return out.getvalue()

def with_genx(num):
    """Try getting fizzbuzz with generator expression and xrange"""
    out = cStringIO.StringIO()
    for fibby in (fizzbuzz(x) for x in xrange(1, num) if fizzbuzz(x)):
        print >> out, fibby
    return out.getvalue()

def main():
    """
    Test speed of generator expressions versus list comprehensions,
    with and without psyco.
    """

    #our variables
    nums = [10000, 100000]
    funcs = [with_list, with_genx]

    #  try without psyco 1st
    print "without psyco"
    for num in nums:
        print "  number:", num
        for func in funcs:
            print func.__name__, time_func(lambda : func(num)), "seconds"
        print

    #  now with psyco
    print "with psyco"
    psyco.full()
    for num in nums:
        print "  number:", num
        for func in funcs:
            print func.__name__, time_func(lambda : func(num)), "seconds"
        print

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

Results:

without psyco
  number: 10000
with_list 0.0519102208309 seconds
with_genx 0.0535933367509 seconds

  number: 100000
with_list 0.542204280744 seconds
with_genx 0.557837353115 seconds

with psyco
  number: 10000
with_list 0.0286369007033 seconds
with_genx 0.0513424889137 seconds

  number: 100000
with_list 0.335414877839 seconds
with_genx 0.580363490491 seconds