Harro de Jong wrote: > I've tried all three, but the function is so small (test a single letter) I > can't measure the difference. I'm using time.time() to see how long it takes > to > execute the function. > I could use a loop to increase execution time, but then I might be measuring > mostly overhead.
Still, this is what you should do. Try the timeit.py module; it does the loop for you. Surprisingly, one of the faster ways to do a loop is nones = [None]*10000000 <start timer> for x in nones: <action> <stop timer> This is fast because no Python integers are created to implement the loop. > I'd expect the third option to be the fastest (involves looking up 3 values, > where the others have to iterate through a-z), but am I right? Just measure it for yourself. I just did, and the third option indeed came out fastest, with the "in" operator only slightly slower. > And reasons to prefer one? For what purpose? To find out whether a letter is lower-case? Just use the .islower() method on the character for that. Regards, Martin -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
