Question

I am attempting to profile a long running python script. The script does some spatial analysis on raster GIS data set using the gdal module. The script currently uses three files, the main script which loops over the raster pixels called find_pixel_pairs.py, a simple cache in lrucache.py and some misc classes in utils.py. I have profiled the code on a moderate sized dataset. pstats returns:

   p.sort_stats('cumulative').print_stats(20)
   Thu May  6 19:16:50 2010    phes.profile

   355483738 function calls in 11644.421 CPU seconds

   Ordered by: cumulative time
   List reduced from 86 to 20 due to restriction <20>

   ncalls  tottime  percall  cumtime  percall filename:lineno(function)
        1    0.008    0.008 11644.421 11644.421 <string>:1(<module>)
        1 11064.926 11064.926 11644.413 11644.413 find_pixel_pairs.py:49(phes)
340135349  544.143    0.000  572.481    0.000 utils.py:173(extent_iterator)
  8831020   18.492    0.000   18.492    0.000 {range}
   231922    3.414    0.000    8.128    0.000 utils.py:152(get_block_in_bands)
   142739    1.303    0.000    4.173    0.000 utils.py:97(search_extent_rect)
   745181    1.936    0.000    2.500    0.000 find_pixel_pairs.py:40(is_no_data)
   285478    1.801    0.000    2.271    0.000 utils.py:98(intify)
   231922    1.198    0.000    2.013    0.000 utils.py:116(block_to_pixel_extent)
   695766    1.990    0.000    1.990    0.000 lrucache.py:42(get)
  1213166    1.265    0.000    1.265    0.000 {min}
  1031737    1.034    0.000    1.034    0.000 {isinstance}
   142740    0.563    0.000    0.909    0.000 utils.py:122(find_block_extent)
   463844    0.611    0.000    0.611    0.000 utils.py:112(block_to_pixel_coord)
   745274    0.565    0.000    0.565    0.000 {method 'append' of 'list' objects}
   285478    0.346    0.000    0.346    0.000 {max}
   285480    0.346    0.000    0.346    0.000 utils.py:109(pixel_coord_to_block_coord)
      324    0.002    0.000    0.188    0.001 utils.py:27(__init__)
      324    0.016    0.000    0.186    0.001 gdal.py:848(ReadAsArray)
        1    0.000    0.000    0.160    0.160 utils.py:50(__init__)

The top two calls contain the main loop – the entire analyis. The remaining calls sum to less than 625 of the 11644 seconds. Where are the remaining 11,000 seconds spent? Is it all within the main loop of find_pixel_pairs.py? If so, can I find out which lines of code are taking most of the time?

Answer 1

You are right that most of the time is being spent in the phes function on line 49 of find_pixel_pairs.py. To find out more, you need to break up phes into more subfunctions, and then reprofile.