Splitting a list of strings

[Alex Martelli]

Emile van Sebille wrote:
        ...
> for line in lines:
>     vals["@#".find(line[:1])+1].append(line)
        ...
> Or, if you want to use an lc:
> 
> [ vals["@#".find(line[:1])+1].append(line) for line in lines]

The lc variant wantonly produces and throws away a list of
copies of None, one per line in lines.  It's thus likely to
be quite a bit slower than the simpler loop.

IMHO, vals should be a dictionary indexed by the character
used to discriminate -- using vals as a list and doing a
find operation repeatedly seems a waste.  However, I admit
I haven't timed the two alternatives, so I could be wrong!


Alex