benchmarking python script reveals mysterious time delays -

i have 2 modules: moduleparent , modulechild

i'm doing in moduleparent:

import modulechild  #a bunch of code  start = time.time() modulechild.childfunction() finish = time.time() print "calling child function takes:", finish-start, "total seconds"  #a bunch of code 

i'm doing in modulechild:

def childfunction():     start = time.time()     #a bunch of code     finish = time.time()     print "child function says takes:", finish-start, "total seconds" 

the output looks this:

calling child function takes: .24 total seconds child function says takes: 0.0 total seconds 

so question is, these .24 seconds coming from?

thank expertise.

#

here actual code "childfuntion". shouldn't take .24 seconds.

 def getresources(show, resourcename='', resourcetype=''):    '''    list of resources given name     @show: show name    @resourcename: name of resource    @resourcetype: type of resource    @return: list of resource dictionaries    '''     t1 = time.time()     cmd = r'c:\tester.exe -cmdfile "c:\%s\info.txt" -user root -pwd root'%show    cmd += " -cmd findresources -machineformatted "     if resourcename:        cmd += '-name %s'%resourcename     if resourcetype:        cmd += '_' + resourcetype.replace(".", "_") + "_"     proc=subprocess.popen(cmd, stdout=subprocess.pipe, stderr=subprocess.pipe)    output = proc.stdout.read()    output = output.strip()     resourcedata = output.split("\r\n")    resourcedata = resourcedata[1:]     resourcelist = []    data in resourcedata:        resourceid, resourcename, resourcetype = data.split("|")        rtyp = "_" + resourcetype.replace(".", "_") + "_"        shot, assetname = resourcename.split(rtyp)        resourcename = assetname        path = '//projects/%s/scenes/%s/%s/%s'%(show, shot, resourcetype.replace(".", "/"), assetname)        resourcedict = {'id':resourceid, 'name':resourcename, 'type':resourcetype, 'path':path }        resourcelist.append(resourcedict)     t2 = time.time()    print ("     ", t2 - t2, "seconds")      return resourcelist 

edit 2: noticed typo in child function, have t2 - t2 in print statement

ignore below:

calling function has overhead (setting stack space, saving local variables, returning, etc). result suggests function trivial setting function call took longer running code itself.

edit: also, calling timers print ads overhead. think it, calling print account lot of .24 seconds. io slow.