python memory overhead from calling functions/methods

Question

It makes code cleaner and easier to read / work-with when things are nicely divided into functions. Is there any memory usage overhead to passing (large) objects back and forth between different method calls? i.e.

Model 1 - Unified:

data1 = getData("1")
# Do stuff to data1
# ...
saveData(data1)

data2 = getData("2")
# Do stuff to data2
# ...
saveData(data2)

Model 2 - Divided:

def doStuff(dat):
    # Do stuff to data
    # ...
    return dat

data1 = getData("1")
data1 = doStuff(data1)
saveData(data1)
data2 = getData("2")
data2 = doStuff(data2)
saveData(data2)

There is some minor overhead for every function call. The size of the objects being passed around does not matter whatsoever. — roippi
– roippi, Commented Apr 21, 2014 at 1:02
In Python, objects and such are passed by reference, not by value, so the I believe the overhead should be about the same regardless of the size of the object you pass in. — Michael0x2a
– Michael0x2a, Commented Apr 21, 2014 at 1:05

U2EF1 · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-21 01:00:34Z

1

Of course there is, but unless you're doing something crazy it should be tiny relative to the rest of your program, on the scale of multiple kilobytes.

answered Apr 21, 2014 at 1:00

U2EF1

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