On Wed, 17 Oct 2007 21:40:40 +0000, Paul Hankin wrote: > On Oct 17, 10:03 pm, Debajit Adhikary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> How does "a.extend(b)" compare with "a += b" when it comes to >> performance? Does a + b create a completely new list that it assigns >> back to a? If so, a.extend(b) would seem to be faster. How could I >> verify things like these? > > Use a += b rather than a.extend(b): I'm not sure what I was thinking.
Neither am I. Why do you say that? > Anyway, look at 'timeit' to see how to measure things like this, but my > advice would be not to worry and to write the most readable code - and > only optimise if your code's runnign too slowly. Always good advice, but of course what a person considers "the most readable code" changes with their experience. > To answer your question though: a += b is *not* the same as a = a + b. It might be. It depends on what a and b are. -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
