Question

Here’s an example with random integers:

a, b, c, d = 79412623, 56529819571, 10431, 30461
t = (79412623, 56529819571, 10431, 30461)

And their sizes:

import sys
sys.getsizeof(t) # 88
aa, bb, cc, dd = sys.getsizeof(a), sys.getsizeof(b), sys.getsizeof(c), sys.getsizeof(d)
sum([aa,bb,cc,dd]) # 96

Why does the tuple take up less space?

Answer 1

The number returned by sys.getsizeof doesn’t include the size of the objects contained by a container.

>>> sys.getsizeof({1:2})
280
>>> sys.getsizeof({'a_really_long_string_that_takes_up_lots_of_space':'foo'})
280