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Why c++ code implementation is not performing better than the python implementation?

I am doing benchmarking for finding nearest neighbour for the datapoints. My c++ implementation and python implementation are taking almost same execution time. Shouldn't be c++ works better than the raw python implementation.
C++ Execution Time : 8.506 seconds
Python Execution Time : 8.7202 seconds
C++ Code:
#include <iostream>
#include <random>
#include <map>
#include <cmath>
#include <numeric>
#include <algorithm>
#include <chrono>
#include <vector> // std::iota
using namespace std;
using namespace std::chrono;
double edist(double* arr1, double* arr2, uint n) {
double sum = 0.0;
for (int i=0; i<n; i++) {
sum += pow(arr1[i] - arr2[i], 2);
}
return sqrt(sum); }
template <typename T> vector<size_t> argsort(const vector<T> &v) {
// initialize original index locations
vector<size_t> idx(v.size()); iota(idx.begin(), idx.end(), 0);
// sort indexes based on comparing values in v
sort(idx.begin(), idx.end(),
[&v](size_t i1, size_t i2) {return v[i1] < v[i2];});
return std::vector<size_t>(idx.begin() + 1, idx.end()); }
int main() {
uint N, M;
// cin >> N >> M;
N = 1000;
M = 800;
double **arr = new double*[N];
std::random_device rd; // obtain a random number from hardware
std::mt19937 eng(rd()); // seed the generator
std::uniform_real_distribution<> distr(10.0, 60.0);
for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) {
arr[i] = new double[M];
for(int j=0; j < M; j++) {
arr[i][j] = distr(eng);
}
}
auto start = high_resolution_clock::now();
map<int, vector<size_t> > dist;
for (int i=0; i<N; i++) {
vector<double> distances;
for(int j=0; j<N; j++) {
distances.push_back(edist(arr[i], arr[j], N));
}
dist[i] = argsort(distances);
}
auto stop = high_resolution_clock::now();
auto duration = duration_cast<microseconds>(stop-start);
int dur = duration.count();
cout<<"Time taken by code: "<<dur<<" microseconds"<<endl;
cout<<" In seconds: "<<dur/pow(10,6);
return 0; }
Python Code:
import time
import numpy as np
def comp_inner_raw(i, x):
res = np.zeros(x.shape[0], dtype=np.float64)
for j in range(x.shape[0]):
res[j] = np.sqrt(np.sum((i-x[j])**2))
return res
def nearest_ngbr_raw(x): # x = [[1,2,3],[4,5,6],[7,8,9]]
#print("My array: ",x)
dist = {}
for idx,i in enumerate(x):
#lst = []
lst = comp_inner_raw(i,x)
s = np.argsort(lst)#[1:]
sorted_array = np.array(x)[s][1:]
dist[idx] = s[1:]
return dist
arr = np.random.rand(1000, 800)
start = time.time()
table = nearest_ngbr_raw(arr)
print("Time taken to execute the code using raw python is {}".format(time.time()-start))
Compile Command:
g++ -std=c++11 knn.cpp -o knn
C++ compiler(g++) version for ubuntu 18.04.1: 7.4.0
Coded in c++11
Numpy version : 1.16.2
Edit
Tried with compiler optimization, now it is taking around 1 second.
Can this c++ code be optimized further from coding or any other perspective?

Can this c++ code be optimized further from coding or any other perspective?
I can see at least three optimisations. The first two are easy and should definitely be done but in my testing they end up not impacting the runtime measurably. The third one requires rethinking the code minimally.
edist caculates a costly square root, but you are only using the distance for pairwise comparison. Since the square root function is monotonically increasing, it has no impact on the comparison result. Similarly, pow(x, 2) can be replaced with x * x and this is sometimes faster:
double edist(std::vector<double> const& arr1, std::vector<double> const& arr2, uint n) {
double sum = 0.0;
for (unsigned int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
auto const diff = arr1[i] - arr2[i];
sum += diff * diff;
}
return sum;
}
argsort performs a copy because it returns the indices excluding the first element. If you instead include the first element (change the return statement to return idx;), you avoid a potentially costly copy.
Your matrix is represented as a nested array (and you’re for some reason using raw pointers instead of a nested std::vector). It’s generally more efficient to represent matrices as contiguous N*M arrays: std::vector<double> arr(N * M);. This is also how numpy represents matrices internally. This requires changing the code to calculate the indices.

Why is my Python NumPy code faster than C++?

Why is this Python NumPy code,
import numpy as np
import time
k_max = 40000
N = 10000
data = np.zeros((2,N))
coefs = np.zeros((k_max,2),dtype=float)
t1 = time.time()
for k in xrange(1,k_max+1):
cos_k = np.cos(k*data[0,:])
sin_k = np.sin(k*data[0,:])
coefs[k-1,0] = (data[1,-1]-data[1,0]) + np.sum(data[1,:-1]*(cos_k[:-1] - cos_k[1:]))
coefs[k-1,1] = np.sum(data[1,:-1]*(sin_k[:-1] - sin_k[1:]))
t2 = time.time()
print('Time:')
print(t2-t1)
faster than the following C++ code?
#include <cstdio>
#include <iostream>
#include <cmath>
#include <time.h>
using namespace std;
// consts
const unsigned int k_max = 40000;
const unsigned int N = 10000;
int main()
{
time_t start, stop;
double diff;
// table with data
double data1[ N ];
double data2[ N ];
// table of results
double coefs1[ k_max ];
double coefs2[ k_max ];
// main loop
time( & start );
for( unsigned int j = 1; j<N; j++ )
{
for( unsigned int i = 0; i<k_max; i++ )
{
coefs1[ i ] += data2[ j-1 ]*(cos((i+1)*data1[ j-1 ]) - cos((i+1)*data1[ j ]));
coefs2[ i ] += data2[ j-1 ]*(sin((i+1)*data1[ j-1 ]) - sin((i+1)*data1[ j ]));
}
}
// end of main loop
time( & stop );
// speed result
diff = difftime( stop, start );
cout << "Time: " << diff << " seconds";
return 0;
}
The first one shows: "Time: 8 seconds"
while the second: "Time: 11 seconds"
I know that NumPy is written in C, but I would still think that C++ example would be faster. Am I missing something? Is there a way to improve the C++ code (or the Python one)?
Version 2 of the code
I have changed the C++ code (dynamical tables to static tables) as suggested in one of the comments. The C++ code is faster now, but still much slower than the Python version.
Version 3 of the code
I have changed from debug to release mode and increased 'k' from 4000 to 40000. Now NumPy is just slightly faster (8 seconds to 11 seconds).

I found this question interesting, because every time I encountered similar topic about the speed of NumPy (compared to C/C++) there was always answers like "it's a thin wrapper, its core is written in C, so it's fast", but this doesn't explain why C should be slower than C with additional layer (even a thin one).
The answer is: your C++ code is not slower than your Python code when properly compiled.
I've done some benchmarks, and at first it seemed that NumPy is surprisingly faster. But I forgot about optimizing the compilation with GCC.
I've computed everything again and also compared results with a pure C version of your code. I am using GCC version 4.9.2, and Python 2.7.9 (compiled from the source with the same GCC). To compile your C++ code I used g++ -O3 main.cpp -o main, to compile my C code I used gcc -O3 main.c -lm -o main. In all examples I filled data variables with some numbers (0.1, 0.4), as it changes results. I also changed np.arrays to use doubles (dtype=np.float64), because there are doubles in C++ example. My pure C version of your code (it's similar):
#include <math.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <time.h>
const int k_max = 100000;
const int N = 10000;
int main(void)
{
clock_t t_start, t_end;
double data1[N], data2[N], coefs1[k_max], coefs2[k_max], seconds;
int z;
for( z = 0; z < N; z++ )
{
data1[z] = 0.1;
data2[z] = 0.4;
}
int i, j;
t_start = clock();
for( i = 0; i < k_max; i++ )
{
for( j = 0; j < N-1; j++ )
{
coefs1[i] += data2[j] * (cos((i+1) * data1[j]) - cos((i+1) * data1[j+1]));
coefs2[i] += data2[j] * (sin((i+1) * data1[j]) - sin((i+1) * data1[j+1]));
}
}
t_end = clock();
seconds = (double)(t_end - t_start) / CLOCKS_PER_SEC;
printf("Time: %f s\n", seconds);
return coefs1[0];
}
For k_max = 100000, N = 10000 results where following:
Python 70.284362 s
C++ 69.133199 s
C 61.638186 s
Python and C++ have basically the same time, but note that there is a Python loop of length k_max, which should be much slower compared to C/C++ one. And it is.
For k_max = 1000000, N = 1000 we have:
Python 115.42766 s
C++ 70.781380 s
For k_max = 1000000, N = 100:
Python 52.86826 s
C++ 7.050597 s
So the difference increases with fraction k_max/N, but python is not faster even for N much bigger than k_max, e. g. k_max = 100, N = 100000:
Python 0.651587 s
C++ 0.568518 s
Obviously, the main speed difference between C/C++ and Python is in the for loop. But I wanted to find out the difference between simple operations on arrays in NumPy and in C. Advantages of using NumPy in your code consists of: 1. multiplying the whole array by a number, 2. calculating sin/cos of the whole array, 3. summing all elements of the array, instead of doing those operations on every single item separately. So I prepared two scripts to compare only these operations.
Python script:
import numpy as np
from time import time
N = 10000
x_len = 100000
def main():
x = np.ones(x_len, dtype=np.float64) * 1.2345
start = time()
for i in xrange(N):
y1 = np.cos(x, dtype=np.float64)
end = time()
print('cos: {} s'.format(end-start))
start = time()
for i in xrange(N):
y2 = x * 7.9463
end = time()
print('multi: {} s'.format(end-start))
start = time()
for i in xrange(N):
res = np.sum(x, dtype=np.float64)
end = time()
print('sum: {} s'.format(end-start))
return y1, y2, res
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()
# results
# cos: 22.7199969292 s
# multi: 0.841291189194 s
# sum: 1.15971088409 s
C script:
#include <math.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <time.h>
const int N = 10000;
const int x_len = 100000;
int main()
{
clock_t t_start, t_end;
double x[x_len], y1[x_len], y2[x_len], res, time;
int i, j;
for( i = 0; i < x_len; i++ )
{
x[i] = 1.2345;
}
t_start = clock();
for( j = 0; j < N; j++ )
{
for( i = 0; i < x_len; i++ )
{
y1[i] = cos(x[i]);
}
}
t_end = clock();
time = (double)(t_end - t_start) / CLOCKS_PER_SEC;
printf("cos: %f s\n", time);
t_start = clock();
for( j = 0; j < N; j++ )
{
for( i = 0; i < x_len; i++ )
{
y2[i] = x[i] * 7.9463;
}
}
t_end = clock();
time = (double)(t_end - t_start) / CLOCKS_PER_SEC;
printf("multi: %f s\n", time);
t_start = clock();
for( j = 0; j < N; j++ )
{
res = 0.0;
for( i = 0; i < x_len; i++ )
{
res += x[i];
}
}
t_end = clock();
time = (double)(t_end - t_start) / CLOCKS_PER_SEC;
printf("sum: %f s\n", time);
return y1[0], y2[0], res;
}
// results
// cos: 20.910590 s
// multi: 0.633281 s
// sum: 1.153001 s
Python results:
cos: 22.7199969292 s
multi: 0.841291189194 s
sum: 1.15971088409 s
C results:
cos: 20.910590 s
multi: 0.633281 s
sum: 1.153001 s
As you can see NumPy is incredibly fast, but always a bit slower than pure C.

I am actually surprised that no one mentioned Linear Algebra libraries like BLAS LAPACK MKL and all...
Numpy is using complex Linear Algebra libraries !
Essentially, Numpy is most of the time not built on pure c/cpp/fortran code... it is actually built on complex libraries that take advantage of the most performant algorithms and ideas to optimise the code. These complex libraries are hardly matched by naive implementation of classic linear algebra computations. The simplest first example of improvement is the blocking trick.
I took the following image from the CSE lab of ETH, where they compare matrix vector multiplication for different implementation. The y-axis represents the intensity of computations (in GFLOPs); long story short, it is how fast the computations are done. The x-axis is the dimension of the matrix.
C and C++ are fast languages, but actually if you want to mimic the speed of these libraries, you might have to go one step deeper and use either Fortran or intrinsics instructions (that are perhaps the closest to assembly code you can do in C++).
Consider the question Benchmarking (python vs. c++ using BLAS) and (numpy), where the very good answer from #Jfs, and we observe: "There is no difference between C++ and numpy on my machine."
Some more reference:
Why is a naïve C++ matrix multiplication 100 times slower than BLAS?

On my computer, your (current) Python code runs in 14.82 seconds (yes, my computer's quite slow).
I rewrote your C++ code to something I'd consider halfway reasonable (basically, I almost ignored your C++ code and just rewrote your Python into C++. That gave me this:
#include <cstdio>
#include <iostream>
#include <cmath>
#include <chrono>
#include <vector>
#include <assert.h>
const unsigned int k_max = 40000;
const unsigned int N = 10000;
template <class T>
class matrix2 {
std::vector<T> data;
size_t cols;
size_t rows;
public:
matrix2(size_t y, size_t x) : cols(x), rows(y), data(x*y) {}
T &operator()(size_t y, size_t x) {
assert(x <= cols);
assert(y <= rows);
return data[y*cols + x];
}
T operator()(size_t y, size_t x) const {
assert(x <= cols);
assert(y <= rows);
return data[y*cols + x];
}
};
int main() {
matrix2<double> data(N, 2);
matrix2<double> coeffs(k_max, 2);
using namespace std::chrono;
auto start = high_resolution_clock::now();
for (int k = 0; k < k_max; k++) {
for (int j = 0; j < N - 1; j++) {
coeffs(k, 0) += data(j, 1) * (cos((k + 1)*data(j, 0)) - cos((k + 1)*data(j+1, 0)));
coeffs(k, 1) += data(j, 1) * (sin((k + 1)*data(j, 0)) - sin((k + 1)*data(j+1, 0)));
}
}
auto end = high_resolution_clock::now();
std::cout << duration_cast<milliseconds>(end - start).count() << " ms\n";
}
This ran in about 14.4 seconds, so it's a slight improvement over the Python version--but given that the Python is mostly a pretty thin wrapper around some C code, getting only a slight improvement is pretty much what we should expect.
The next obvious step would be to use multiple cores. To do that in C++, we can add this line:
#pragma omp parallel for
...before the outer for loop:
#pragma omp parallel for
for (int k = 0; k < k_max; k++) {
for (int j = 0; j < N - 1; j++) {
coeffs(k, 0) += data(j, 1) * (cos((k + 1)*data(j, 0)) - cos((k + 1)*data(j+1, 0)));
coeffs(k, 1) += data(j, 1) * (sin((k + 1)*data(j, 0)) - sin((k + 1)*data(j+1, 0)));
}
}
With -openmp added to the compiler's command line (though the exact flag depends on the compiler you're using, of course), this ran in about 4.8 seconds. If you have more than 4 cores, you can probably expect a larger improvement than that though (conversely, if you have fewer than 4 cores, expect a smaller improvement--but nowadays, more than 4 is a lot more common that fewer).

I tried to understand your Python code and reproduce it in C++. I found that you didn't represent correctly the for-loops in order to do the correct calculations of the coeffs, hence should switch your for-loops. If this is the case, you should have the following:
#include <iostream>
#include <cmath>
#include <time.h>
const int k_max = 40000;
const int N = 10000;
double cos_k, sin_k;
int main(int argc, char const *argv[])
{
time_t start, stop;
double data[2][N];
double coefs[k_max][2];
time(&start);
for(int i=0; i<k_max; ++i)
{
for(int j=0; j<N; ++j)
{
coefs[i][0] += data[1][j-1] * (cos((i+1) * data[0][j-1]) - cos((i+1) * data[0][j]));
coefs[i][1] += data[1][j-1] * (sin((i+1) * data[0][j-1]) - sin((i+1) * data[0][j]));
}
}
// End of main loop
time(&stop);
// Speed result
double diff = difftime(stop, start);
std::cout << "Time: " << diff << " seconds" << std::endl;
return 0;
}
Switching the for-loops gives me: 3 seconds for C++ code, optimized with -O3, while Python code runs at 7.816 seconds.

The Python code can't be faster than properly-coded C++ code since Numpy is coded in C, which is often slower than C++ since C++ can do more optimizations. They'll only be around each other with Python running somewhere between the same time as C++ to about twice C++ when doing the majority of your computation in large computations that Python pushes off to compiled binaries to calculate. Most anything beyond large matrix multiplication, addition, scalar on matrix multiplication, etc. will perform much worse in Python. For example, look at the Benchmark Game where people submit solutions to various algorithms in various languages, and the website keeps track of the fastest submissions for each (algorithm, language) pair. You can even view the source code for each submission. For most test cases, Python is 2-15 times slower than C++. That makes sense too if you do anything other than simple math operations - anything with linked lists, binary search trees, procedural code, etc. The interpreted nature of Python combined with it storing metadata for each object (even int, double, float, etc.) significantly bogs things down in a way that no Python programmer can fix.

How to pass two dimensional array from python to function written in c++ using SWIG? [duplicate]

I have written a good bit of code in python and it works great. But now I'm scaling up the size of the problems that I'm analyzing and python is dreadfully slow. The slow part of the python code is
for i in range(0,H,1):
x1 = i - length
x2 = i + length
for j in range(0,W,1):
#print i, ',', j # check the limits
y1 = j - length
y2 = j + length
IntRed[i,j] = np.mean(RawRed[x1:x2,y1:y2])
With H and W equal to 1024 the function takes around 5 minutes to excute. I've written a simple c++ program/function that performs the same computation and it excutes in less than a second with the same data size.
double summ = 0;
double total_num = 0;
double tmp_num = 0 ;
int avesize = 2;
for( i = 0+avesize; i <X-avesize ;i++)
for(j = 0+avesize;j<Y-avesize;j++)
{
// loop through sub region of the matrix
// if the value is not zero add it to the sum
// and increment the counter.
for( int ii = -2; ii < 2; ii ++)
{
int iii = i + ii;
for( int jj = -2; jj < 2 ; jj ++ )
{
int jjj = j + jj;
tmp_num = gsl_matrix_get(m,iii,jjj);
if(tmp_num != 0 )
{
summ = summ + tmp_num;
total_num++;
}
}
}
gsl_matrix_set(Matrix_mean,i,j,summ/total_num);
summ = 0;
total_num = 0;
}
I have some other methods to perform on the 2D array. The one listed is a simple examples.
What I want to do is pass a python 2D array to my c++ function and return a 2D array back to python.
I've read a bit about swig, and have sereached pervious questions, and it seems like it's a possible solution. But I can't seem to figure out what I actually need to do.
Can I get any help? Thanks

You can use arrays as it is described here: Doc - 5.4.5 Arrays, the carray.i or std_vector.i from the SWIG library.
I find it easier to work with std::vector from the SWIG library std_vector.i to send a python list to a C++ SWIG extension. Though in your case where optimization matters, it may not be the optimal.
In your case you can define:
test.i
%module test
%{
#include "test.h"
%}
%include "std_vector.i"
namespace std {
%template(Line) vector < int >;
%template(Array) vector < vector < int> >;
}
void print_array(std::vector< std::vector < int > > myarray);
test.h
#ifndef TEST_H__
#define TEST_H__
#include <stdio.h>
#include <vector>
void print_array(std::vector< std::vector < int > > myarray);
#endif /* TEST_H__ */
test.cpp
#include "test.h"
void print_array(std::vector< std::vector < int > > myarray)
{
for (int i=0; i<2; i++)
for (int j=0; j<2; j++)
printf("[%d][%d] = [%d]\n", i, j, myarray[i][j]);
}
If you run the following python code (I used python 2.6.5), you can see that the C++ function can access the python list:
>>> import test
>>> a = test.Array()
>>> a = [[0, 1], [2, 3]]
>>> test.print_array(a)
[0][0] = [0]
[0][1] = [1]
[1][0] = [2]
[1][1] = [3]

Is there an equivalent to a nested recursive function in C?

First of all, I know that nested functions are not supported by the C standard.
However, it's often very useful, in other languages, to define an auxiliary recursive function that will make use of data provided by the outer function.
Here is an example, computing the number of solutions of the N-queens problem, in Python. It's easy to write the same in Lisp, Ada or Fortran for instance, which all allow some kind of nested function.
def queens(n):
a = list(range(n))
u = [True]*(2*n - 1)
v = [True]*(2*n - 1)
m = 0
def sub(i):
nonlocal m
if i == n:
m += 1
else:
for j in range(i, n):
p = i + a[j]
q = i + n - 1 - a[j]
if u[p] and v[q]:
u[p] = v[q] = False
a[i], a[j] = a[j], a[i]
sub(i + 1)
u[p] = v[q] = True
a[i], a[j] = a[j], a[i]
sub(0)
return m
Now my question: is there a way to do something like this in C? I would think of two solutions: using globals or passing data as parameters, but they both look rather unsatisfying.
There is also a way to write this as an iterative program, but it's clumsy:actually, I first wrote the iterative solution in Fortran 77 for Rosetta Code and then wanted to sort out this mess. Fortran 77 does not have recursive functions.
For those who wonder, the function manages the NxN board as a permutation of [0, 1 ... N-1], so that queens are alone on lines and columns. The function is looking for all permutations that are also solutions of the problem, starting to check the first column (actually nothing to check), then the second, and recursively calling itself only when the first i columns are in a valid configuration.

Of course. You need to simulate the special environment in use by your nested function, as static variables on the module level. Declare them above your nested function.
To not mess things up, you put this whole thing into a separate module.

Editor's Note: This answer was moved from the content of a question edit, it is written by the Original Poster.
Thanks all for the advice. Here is a solution using a structure passed as an argument. This is roughly equivalent to what gfortran and gnat do internally to deal with nested functions. The argument i could also be passed in the structure, by the way.
The inner function is declared static so as to help compiler optimizations. If it's not recursive, the code can then be integrated to the outer function (tested with GCC on a simple example), since the compiler knows the function will not be called from the "outside".
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
struct queens_data {
int n, m, *a, *u, *v;
};
static void queens_sub(int i, struct queens_data *e) {
if(i == e->n) {
e->m++;
} else {
int p, q, j;
for(j = i; j < e->n; j++) {
p = i + e->a[j];
q = i + e->n - 1 - e->a[j];
if(e->u[p] && e->v[q]) {
int k;
e->u[p] = e->v[q] = 0;
k = e->a[i];
e->a[i] = e->a[j];
e->a[j] = k;
queens_sub(i + 1, e);
e->u[p] = e->v[q] = 1;
k = e->a[i];
e->a[i] = e->a[j];
e->a[j] = k;
}
}
}
}
int queens(int n) {
int i;
struct queens_data s;
s.n = n;
s.m = 0;
s.a = malloc((5*n - 2)*sizeof(int));
s.u = s.a + n;
s.v = s.u + 2*n - 1;
for(i = 0; i < n; i++) {
s.a[i] = i;
}
for(i = 0; i < 2*n - 1; i++) {
s.u[i] = s.v[i] = 1;
}
queens_sub(0, &s);
free(s.a);
return s.m;
}
int main() {
int n;
for(n = 1; n <= 16; n++) {
printf("%d %d\n", n, queens(n));
}
return 0;
}

Why is Python sort faster than that of C++

Sorting a list of ints in python 3 seems to be faster than sorting an array of ints in C++. Below is the code for 1 python program and 2 C++ programs that I used for the test. Any reason why the C++ programs are slower? It doesn't make sense to me.
----- Program 1 - python 3.4 -----
from time import time
x = 10000
y = 1000
start = time()
for _ in range(y):
a = list(range(x))
a.reverse()
a.sort()
print(round(time() - start, 2), 'seconds')
----- Program 2 - c++ using sort from algorithm ------
using namespace std;
#include <iostream>
#include <algorithm>
int main(){
int x = 10000;
int y = 1000;
int b[10000];
cout << "start" << endl;
for (int j = 0; j < y; j++){
for (int i = 0; i < x; i++){
b[i] = x - i;
} // still slower than python with this clause taken out
sort(b, b + x); // regular sort
}
cout << "done";
system("pause");
}
----- Program 3 - c++ using hand written merge sort ------
using namespace std;
#include <iostream>
void merge(int * arr, int *temp, int first_start, int second_start, int second_finish){
int a1 = first_start, b1 = second_start, r = 0;
while (a1 < second_start && b1 < second_finish){
if (arr[a1] < arr[b1]){
temp[r] = arr[a1];
a1++; r++;
}
else {
temp[r] = arr[b1];
b1++; r++;
}
}
if (a1 < second_start){
while (a1 < second_start){
temp[r] = arr[a1];
a1++; r++;
}
}
else {
while (b1 < second_finish){
temp[r] = arr[b1];
b1++; r++;
}
}
for (int i = first_start; i < second_finish; i++){
arr[i] = temp[i - first_start];
}
}
void merge_sort(int *a, int a_len, int *temp){
int c = 1, start = 0;
while (c < a_len){
while (start + c * 2 < a_len){
merge(a, temp, start, start + c, start + c * 2);
start += c * 2;
}
if (start + c <= a_len){
merge(a, temp, start, start + c, a_len);
}
c *= 2; start = 0;
}
}
int main(){
int x = 10000; // size of array to be sorted
int y = 1000; // number of times to sort it
int b[10000], temp[10000];
cout << "start" << endl;
for (int j = 0; j < y; j++){
for (int i = 0; i < x; i++){
b[i] = x - i; // reverse sorted array (even with this assignment taken out still runs slower than python)
}
merge_sort(b, x, temp);
}
cout << "done";
system("pause");
}

The core reason is no doubt timsort -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timsort -- first conceived by Tim Peters for Python though now also in some Java VMs (for non-primitives only).
It's a truly amazing algorithm and you can find a C++ implementation at https://github.com/swenson/sort for example.
Lesson to retain: the proper architecture and algorithms can let you run circles around supposedly-faster languages if the latter are using less-perfect A & As!-) So, if you have really big problems to solve, deal with determining perfect architecture and algorithms first -- the language and optimizations within it are inevitably lower-priority issues.