Measuring time I
In the lecture slides, you saw how the time.time() function can be loaded and used to assess the time required to perform a basic mathematical operation.
Now, you will use the same strategy to assess two different methods for solving a similar problem: calculate the sum of squares of all the positive integers from 1 to 1 million (1,000,000).
Similar to what you saw in the video, you will compare two methods; one that uses brute force and one more mathematically sophisticated.
In the function formula, we use the standard formula
$$ \frac{N*(N+1)(2N+1)}{6} $$
where N=1,000,000.
In the function brute_force we loop over each number from 1 to 1 million and add it to the result.
This exercise is part of the course
Writing Efficient Code with pandas
Exercise instructions
- Calculate the result of the problem using the
formula()function. - Print the time required to calculate the result using the
formula()function. - Calculate the result of the problem using the
brute_force()function. - Print the time required to calculate the result using the
brute_force()function.
Hands-on interactive exercise
Have a go at this exercise by completing this sample code.
# Calculate the result of the problem using formula() and print the time required
N = 1000000
fm_start_time = ____
first_method = formula(N)
print("Time using formula: {} sec".format(time.time() - fm_start_time))
# Calculate the result of the problem using brute_force() and print the time required
sm_start_time = ____
second_method = ____(N)
print("Time using the brute force: {} sec".format(time.time() - sm_start_time))