"map" takes a function and a list, applies the function to each item in a list, and returns the result list. For example:
>>> def f(x): return x + 4 >>> numbers = [4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42] >>> map(f, numbers) [8, 12, 19, 20, 27, 46] So, rather that ask if there is a different way to write f, I'd just use f in a different way. Another way to accomplish the same result is with a list comprehension: >>> [f(x) for x in numbers] [8, 12, 19, 20, 27, 46] As you can see, if you wanted to "calculate all the values from 1 to n," you could also use these techniques instead of a loop. >>> n = 10 >>> [f(x) for x in xrange(1, n+1)] [5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14] -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
