On Mon, 29 Jan 2007 08:38:13 -0800, Szabolcs Nagy wrote: >>> why use xrange? range is faster and simpler for small ranges
That is not true. >>> import timeit >>> timeit.Timer("range(50)", "").repeat() [2.8599629402160645, 2.8296849727630615, 2.8609859943389893] >>> timeit.Timer("xrange(50)", "").repeat() [1.1806831359863281, 1.3563210964202881, 1.1632850170135498] >>> timeit.Timer("range(5)", "").repeat() [1.7963159084320068, 1.5487189292907715, 1.5596699714660645] >>> timeit.Timer("xrange(5)", "").repeat() [1.158560037612915, 1.1807279586791992, 1.1769890785217285] There is very little reason to use range() unless you actually need the entire list in one go. In fact, in Python 3.0, the existing range() will be removed and xrange() will be renamed range(). -- Steven D'Aprano -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list