Maric Michaud <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Le Friday 13 June 2008 17:55:44 Karsten Heymann, vous avez écrit : >> Maric Michaud <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> > So, writing C in python, which has dictionnary as builtin type, >> > should be considered "more elegant" ? >> >> IMO that's a bit harsh.
> harsh ? Sorry, I'm not sure to understand. Never mind, I got carried away. >> I'd never argue that using a dictionary is the obvious and natural >> data structure for this case. But is it the best? Honestly, as your >> very nice example shows, we have two solutions that are equally >> fast, equally complex to code and equally robust, but one needs > > Yes, but my example take ordered integer for keys (users' names) > which they should not be in a real case, so retrieving the result is > by way easier (and faster) with a dictionnary. Of course. As I wrote in my first post, my proposal dependeds upon the users being a numerical and compact list with a known maximum, as in the OP's example. Otherwise my approach makes no sense at all :-) >> approximately the double amount of memory compared to the other. > > I don't see how you came to this conclusion. Are you sure the extra > list take twice more memory than the extra dictionary ? I'm referring to the resulting data structure. A list with n items should take approx. half the space of a dictionary with n keys and n entries. Or, the other way round, if i have a dictionary with keys 1..n, why shouldn't I use a list instead. Yours, Karsten -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
