Maximum List Sizes

[bushi]

Being a Python user of all of two weeks, I am pleased with my first real
effort to create a script that does something useful.  It duplicates the
functionality of a Delphi program that I wrote some time ago.  It still
has some rough edges but that's just learning curve.  Basically what it
does is extracts the vertices (x,y,z coordinates) from a WaveFront .obj
file.  The original file is about 950K while the resulting vertices file
is about 350K.  OK, that's kind of a round-about way to get to the
question.  The vertices file contains some 9500 lines of about 40-60
characters per line.  I would like to perform some transformations on
the vertices.  Can Python effectively handle a list this large (9500+
items X 40-60 bytes / item) or would it be better to do the
transformations using temp files?

I have to say that I am also some what surprised with the processing
speed of Python.  The Delphi program that I wrote to do this same
process seemed pretty fast.  The Python script is 2-3 times faster.  Go
figure. ;->