Question

Considering the following as two versions of a very simple function in Python, the question is which one is preferred over another and why?

Is there any extra memory usage and or CPU usage for case 1 compared to case 2 in which additional assignment has been used?

case 1:

def f(x):
    y = x*x
    return y

case 2:

def f(x):
    return x*x

From my point of view, the case 1 is clearer than the other one especially in case of complex computations and providing many returning objects. On the other hand, the case 2 looks very compact and would be considered as a very attractive so. Since the simple is simply efficient. What do you think?

update:
I didn’t know there is disassembler in Python! It was so amazing when I learned the answer of my question and the way to check similar ideas. Special appreciation.
from dis import dis as dasm
dasm(f)

Answer 1

If you want to know what Python style is preferred, look at the code in the standard library:

$ grep return Lib/*py

You will see that the case 2 style is the most common.

I personally use the assignment form only when the variable name is needed to add clarity to the code:

normalized_query = query.replace(' ', '').lower()
return normalized_query

This code introduces a very small bit of overhead for the assignment:

>>> def f(x):
        return x + 2

>>> def g(x):
        y = x + 2
        return y

>>> dis(f)
  2           0 LOAD_FAST                0 (x)
              3 LOAD_CONST               1 (2)
              6 BINARY_ADD          
              7 RETURN_VALUE        
>>> dis(g)
  2           0 LOAD_FAST                0 (x)
              3 LOAD_CONST               1 (2)
              6 BINARY_ADD          
              7 STORE_FAST               1 (y)

  3          10 LOAD_FAST                1 (y)
             13 RETURN_VALUE