Speed up a slow loop

[Ken Ray]

BTW you an also use this "split" trick to remove dupes (although you lose the order of the word list):

function stripDupes pWordList
  split pWordList by cr and tab
  return (the keys of pWordList)
end stripDupes

on mouseUp
   put stripDupes("test" & cr & "ball" & cr & "test" & cr & "orange")
end mouseUp

Result:
	ball
	orange
	test

Not sure if it's faster, but it may work in your situation,

Ken


> On Mar 3, 2022, at 2:28 PM, J. Landman Gay via use-livecode <use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:
> 
> On 3/3/22 12:53 AM, Mark Waddingham via use-livecode wrote:
>> If the difference between `the milliseconds` before the loop, and then after is 0 or 1 millisecond - then that is how long it is taking. This means the issue is somewhere else. Are you sure there isn't anything you are doing either before that loop or after that loop which doesn't wait for ages (due to the ANRs you mentioned).
> 
> Today I'm getting slightly faster results. Repeatedly creating new boards is not slowing down. Maybe some background processes were stopped (there was a system update last night.)
> 
> The scoring handler does three things with the user word list, calling out to 3 different handlers:
>  1. Remove any duplicates
>  2. Check the dicionary for the remaining words
>  3. Walk the board for each word to ensure it's a legal path
> 
> I just ran tests with LC 9.6.6 on a Pixel 5 that timed each callout independently. Times are in milliseconds. No words were longer than 4 letters.
> 
> Dupes Dictionary Boardwalk     word counts
> 12   1954       1404           -- 5 wds + 2 dupes, 2 illegals (total 9)
> 1   1934       2542           -- 9 wds, all legal
> 0   1960       1966           -- 7 wds + 2 illegals (total 9)
> 0   1921       1142           -- 4 wds, all legal
> 17   2015       8321           -- 30 wds + 1 dupe, 1 illegal (total 32)
> 
> My recursive board walk could probably be optimized but for now I'm just focusing on the dictionary lookup. For reference, here is the whole handler:
> 
> function checkDictionary pList -- plist is the user words
>  repeat for each line l in pList
>    if sDictFile[l] = true then put l & cr after tCheckedList
>    else put l & cr after tNonWords
>    wait 0 with messages  -- prevent ANRs
>  end repeat
>  set wholematches to true
>  put fld "wordList" into tWList -- no longer the same as pList since removeDupes has already run
>  repeat for each line l in tNonWords -- mark non-words in list
>    set the textcolor of line lineoffset(l,tWList) of fld "wordList" to "red"
>  end repeat
>  if tNonWords <> "" then put tNonWords into sStats["unknowns"] -- for later display
>  return tCheckedList
> end checkDictionary
> 
> I suppose the delay could be updating the field? But updating a field for 2 or 3 entries shouldn't take too long, should it? Also note that in the 2 runs where there were no illegals, the timings didn't vary much. The checkDupes handler also colorizes duplicate words, which is why those 2 runs have longer times.
> 
>> If there are only 3 reasonable length words in pList (I.e. 3 lines) then there's no way that loop can take 4 seconds.
> 
> When testing I don't have patience to think, so all words are usually 3-4 letters each.
> 
> 
>>> Even stranger: on my cheapo Android tablet with 4 megs of RAM running
>>> Android 9 the response is nearly instantaneous, even if the user list
>>> has 200+ words. On my Pixel phone with 8 megs of RAM and Android 12
>>> the response is slow enough to trigger the ANR with only 3 words. I'm
>>> building for ARM 64.
>> This strongly suggests it is something else either on your phone, or in your code which your phone doesn't like I think.
> 
> I have two Pixels, a 5 and a 6, and they both behave the same (slow) way, though the 6 has the new Tensor chip. Yesterday I was wondering if the delay isn't the calculations but rather the screen redraws. I have a lot of controls stacked up on the card, though many are not visible. However, I've run the handlers with the screen both locked and unlocked with no changes.
> 
> -- 
> Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
> HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com
> 
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Ken Ray
Sons of Thunder Software, Inc.
Email: kray at sonsothunder.com
Website: https://www.sonsothunder.com