Timing complexity for copy() in python. How do I add the elapsed time?

Question

import timeit

def copytest():

lst = []
for i in range(1000000):
    lst.append(i)
starttime = timeit.default_timer()
copiedlst = lst.copy()
endtime = timeit.default_timer()
elapsedtime = endtime - starttime
elapsedtime += elapsedtime
return elapsedtime 

for j in range(1, 100):
    print(j, copytest())

I am trying to see how long it takes for copy() to copy a list. It should be O(n) because copy() is going through the list one item at a time. How do I get "elapsedtime" to keep track of the value it has had before? This code resets the elapsed time back to 0. I'd appreciate any help to fixing the code even more also!

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65941554/timing-complexity-for-copy-in-python-how-do-i-add-the-elapsed-time

Answer 1

If you want to have all the previous values for elapsedtime use the below code. elapsed_list holds these values for you.

import timeit

def copytest():
  lst = []
  for i in range(1000000):
      lst.append(i)
  starttime = timeit.default_timer()
  copiedlst = lst.copy()
  endtime = timeit.default_timer()
  elapsedtime = endtime - starttime
  elapsedtime += elapsedtime
  return elapsedtime 

elapsed_list = []
for j in range(1, 100):
  e = copytest()
  elapsed_list.append(e)
  print(j, copytest())