antigravity Module Complexity

The antigravity module is an Easter egg. Importing it runs one call, webbrowser.open() on xkcd 353, so the first import in a process costs whatever that call costs and returns when it does. It also defines geohash(), the xkcd 426 geohashing algorithm.

n is the bytes in datedow. The first import's bound uses the webbrowser page's variables: b is the browsers in the preference order and p is the directories on PATH. Loading webbrowser and hashlib, and any browser process webbrowser.open() starts, are not priced. The coordinates are ordinary degree values, so formatting them is fixed-size.

Complexity Reference

Importing the module

Operation	Time	Space	Notes
import antigravity, first in a process	O(b + p)	O(b + p)	One webbrowser.open('https://xkcd.com/353/'), which runs browser discovery first unless something in the process already has. Its result is ignored, so finding no browser is not an error
import antigravity, again	O(1)	O(1)	Found in sys.modules; the body does not run again, so no second browser

geohash

Operation	Time	Space	Notes
antigravity.geohash(latitude, longitude, datedow)	O(n)	O(1)	datedow is bytes-like, not str; prints the coordinates and returns None

Importing the Module

The import waits for webbrowser.open() to return, and what that takes depends on the browser that call reaches: when it is a text-mode browser, the import is held until the user quits. Replacing webbrowser.open before the first import is how to load the module without a browser.

import sys
import webbrowser
from unittest import mock

# A stand-in reporting that no browser was found
with mock.patch.object(webbrowser, 'open', return_value=False) as opened:
    import antigravity  # one webbrowser.open() call; False is not an error
    import antigravity  # O(1) - found in sys.modules, the body does not run again

opened.assert_called_once_with('https://xkcd.com/353/')
assert sys.modules['antigravity'] is antigravity

Geohashing

geohash() hashes datedow with MD5 and turns the two halves of the digest into decimal fractions that replace the fractional parts of the latitude and longitude. The hash is its only work that grows with the input. It prints the result instead of returning it.

import contextlib
import io
import webbrowser
from unittest import mock

with mock.patch.object(webbrowser, 'open'):  # the import would otherwise open a browser
    from antigravity import geohash

buffer = io.StringIO()
with contextlib.redirect_stdout(buffer):
    result = geohash(37.421542, -122.085589, b'2005-05-26-10458.68')  # O(n)

assert result is None
assert buffer.getvalue() == '37.857713 -122.544543\n'

Performance Best Practices

✅ Do:

• Replace webbrowser.open, or register a preferred controller that reports success, before importing the module in a test or script, so the import's one webbrowser.open() call starts nothing
• Capture geohash() with contextlib.redirect_stdout; it returns None

❌ Avoid:

• Importing it on a text console where the browser webbrowser.open() reaches is a text-mode one: the import waits until that browser exits

Related Modules

• webbrowser - what the first import's webbrowser.open() call costs
• hashlib - the MD5 that geohash() runs over datedow
• this - the other Easter egg that acts when imported