pyperf | Code samples for performance analysis of python scripts | Performance Testing library

Indexing and in are slower in dict subclasses because of a bad interaction between a dict optimization and the logic subclasses use to inherit C slots. This should be fixable, though not from your end.

The CPython implementation has two sets of hooks for operator overloads. There are Python-level methods like __contains__ and __getitem__, but there's also a separate set of slots for C function pointers in the memory layout of a type object. Usually, either the Python method will be a wrapper around the C implementation, or the C slot will contain a function that searches for and calls the Python method. It's more efficient for the C slot to implement the operation directly, as the C slot is what Python actually accesses.

Mappings written in C implement the C slots sq_contains and mp_subscript to provide in and indexing. Ordinarily, the Python-level __contains__ and __getitem__ methods would be automatically generated as wrappers around the C functions, but the dict class has explicit implementations of __contains__ and __getitem__, because the explicit implementations are a bit faster than the generated wrappers: