The Fastest Python Struct?
The article benchmarks various Python struct implementations (dataclasses, namedtuples, attrs, pydantic, msgspec, and custom __slots__ classes) to determine which is fastest for creation, access, and serialization. It finds that msgspec offers the best overall performance, while custom classes with __slots__ are also highly efficient for basic use cases.
Background
- This article compares Python's built-in `struct` module against alternatives like `msgspec`, `pydantic`, and `dataclasses` for packing/unpacking binary data.
- `struct` is Python's standard-library tool for converting between Python values and C-style binary structures (e.g., for network protocols or file formats). It's commonly used but often slow for large batches.
- `msgspec` is a fast, third-party serialization library known for using zero-copy techniques and native code (via Rust or Cython) to outperform `struct` significantly.
- `pydantic` is a popular library for data validation/serialization (built on top of type annotations) — it's more feature-rich than `struct` but often slower due to runtime validation overhead.
- The test likely measures throughput (operations/second) for encoding and decoding binary data, a common bottleneck in high-performance Python applications like gaming servers, real-time data pipelines, or embedded communications.