On Wed, 15 Feb 2006 08:44:10 +0100, Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch wrote: > In <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Farel wrote: > >> Which is Faster in Python and Why? > > ``if not b in m`` looks at each element of `m` until it finds `b` in it > and stops then. Assuming `b` is in `m`, otherwise all elements of `m` are > "touched". > > ``if m.count(b) > 0`` will always goes through all elements of `m` in the > `count()` method.
But the first technique executes in (relatively slow) pure Python, while the count method executes (relatively fast) C code. So even though count may do more work, it may do it faster. The only way to tell for sure is to actually time the code, not try to guess. -- Steven. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
