Question
You are considered using ordered dictionaries in Python (e.g., because of the way they handle temporal data). Will your program use more memory this way compared to using a regular dictionary?
Answer
Yes. All things being equal, ordered dictionaries use more memory than normal dictionaries.
# You will see that Python 3's ordered dictionaries consume more memory than regular dictionaries
# This was adapted from https://lerner.co.il/2019/05/12/python-dicts-and-memory-usage/
import sys
from collections import OrderedDict
x = OrderedDict()
y = {}
for i in range(1, 123456):
x[i] = "filler text"
y[i] = "filler text"
print(sys.getsizeof(x))
print("The size of the ordered dictionary is above and the regular dictionary is below.")
print(sys.getsizeof(y))