Python "range" resource consumption

Question

I wrote the following script

Basically, I'm just learning Python for Machine Learning and wanted to check how really computationally intensive tasks would perform. I observe that for 10**8 iterations, Python takes up a lot of RAM (around 3.8 GB) and also a lot of CPU time (just froze my system)

I want to know if there is any way to limit the time/memory consumption either through code or some global settings

Script -

initial_start = time.clock()
for i in range(9):
 start = time.clock()
 for j in range(10**i):
  pass
 stop = time.clock()
 print 'Looping exp(',i,') times takes', stop - start, 'seconds'
final_stop = time.clock()
print 'Overall program time is',final_stop - initial_start,'seconds'

Answer 1

In Python 2, range creates a list. Use xrange instead. For a more detailed explanation see Should you always favor xrange() over range()?

Note that a no-op for loop is a very poor benchmark that tells you pretty much nothing about Python.

Also note, as per gnibbler's comment, Python 3's range is works like Python 2's xrange.