import time ten_million = 10000000 ten_thousand = 10000 one_thousand = 1000 start = time.time() for item in range(one_thousand): print item end = time.time() first = end - start start = time.time() s = '' for item in range(ten_thousand): s = s + str(item) + '\n' print s end = time.time() second = end - start print first print second