I liked very much your implementation for the compare function, it is very short and at the same time readable:def compare(a, b, comp=operator.eq): return (len(a) == len(b)) and all(comp(*t) for t in zip(a, b))But I have only one problem, it is suboptimal, in the sense that: * it constructs two intermediary lists (the list comprehension and the zip call); * it evaluates all the elements, even if one is false at the beginning; So, could you overcome these problems?
The solution would be to use itertools.izip() instead of the stock zip(). The all() function short-circuits at the first non-True value. Thus, using izip() instead will (1) not create any new lists (it's a generator, not a list) and (2) the all() will only look until it fails.
Just make sure that your comp() function returns equality for this to work, or otherwise use "not comp()" (which is germane if you use a __cmp__ function that returns 0 for equality)
-tkc -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
