Question

I have been learning functional programming and I come to idea, to assemble mathematical operators.
counting -> addition -> multiplication -> power -> ... Naturally came out simple and most naive code to express this and it works! Problem is that I really have no idea why it works so well and whit such large outputs.

question is:
What is complexity of this function?

Code is in python:

def operator(d):
        if d<=1:
                return lambda x,y:x+y
        else:
                return lambda x,y:reduce(operator(d-1),(x for i in xrange(y)))


#test 
f1 = operator(1)       #f1 is adition
print("f1",f1(50,52))  #50+52

f2 = operator(2)      #f2 is multiplication
print("f2",f2(2,20))  #2*20

f3 = operator(3)      #f3 is power, just look how long output can be
print("f3",f3(4,100)) #4**100 

f4 = operator(4)      #f4 is superpower, this one does not work that well
print("f4",f4(2,6))   #((((2**2)**2)**2)**2)**2

f5 = operator(5)      #f5 do not ask about this one, 
print("f5",f5(2,4))   #

output (instantly):

('f1', 102)
('f2', 40)
('f3', 1606938044258990275541962092341162602522202993782792835301376L)
('f4', 4294967296L)
('f5', 32317006071311007300714876688669951960444102669715484032130345427524655138867890893197201411522913463688717960921898019494119559150490921095088152386448283120630877367300996091750197750389652106796057638384067568276792218642619756161838094338476170470581645852036305042887575891541065808607552399123930385521914333389668342420684974786564569494856176035326322058077805659331026192708460314150258592864177116725943603718461857357598351152301645904403697613233287231227125684710820209725157101726931323469678542580656697935045997268352998638215525166389437335543602135433229604645318478604952148193555853611059596230656L)

Answer 1

The disassembly tells you that no magic optimizations have been applied here, it’s really just a reduce over a genexpr. Python just seems to be up to this task, even if it surprises you.

>>> import dis
>>> dis.dis(f3)
  5           0 LOAD_GLOBAL              0 (reduce)
              3 LOAD_GLOBAL              1 (operator)
              6 LOAD_DEREF               1 (d)
              9 LOAD_CONST               1 (1)
             12 BINARY_SUBTRACT     
             13 CALL_FUNCTION            1
             16 LOAD_CLOSURE             0 (x)
             19 BUILD_TUPLE              1
             22 LOAD_CONST               2 (<code object <genexpr> at 0x7f32d325f830, file "<stdin>", line 5>)
             25 MAKE_CLOSURE             0
             28 LOAD_GLOBAL              2 (xrange)
             31 LOAD_FAST                1 (y)
             34 CALL_FUNCTION            1
             37 GET_ITER            
             38 CALL_FUNCTION            1
             41 CALL_FUNCTION            2
             44 RETURN_VALUE

If you specifically look at your f5(2,4) call, it doesn’t perform so many operations, actually:

>>> counter = 0
>>> def adder(x, y):
...   global counter
...   counter += 1
...   return x + y
... 
>>> def op(d):
...   if d <= 1: return adder
...   return lambda x,y:reduce(op(d-1),(x for i in xrange(y)))
...
>>> op(5)(2,4)
32317006071311007300714876688669951960444102669715484032130345427524655138867890893197201411522913463688717960921898019494119559150490921095088152386448283120630877367300996091750197750389652106796057638384067568276792218642619756161838094338476170470581645852036305042887575891541065808607552399123930385521914333389668342420684974786564569494856176035326322058077805659331026192708460314150258592864177116725943603718461857357598351152301645904403697613233287231227125684710820209725157101726931323469678542580656697935045997268352998638215525166389437335543602135433229604645318478604952148193555853611059596230656L
>>> counter
65035
>>> counter = 0
>>> op(3)(4,100)
>>> counter
297

65k additions, let alone the 297 for the exponentiation, are not even worth speaking of when it comes to hilariously optimized modern CPUs, so it’s no wonder that this finishes in the blink of an eye. Try increasing one of the arguments to see how this hits the border of quick evaluation very rapidly.

By the way, operator is a built-in module and you shouldn’t name your own functions like that.