Fastest way to loop through each digit in a number?

[Roy Smith]

In article <ssjnj01agata9qtsn414740sml1kc2em49 at 4ax.com>,
 Rune Strand <rst at _nospam_.drlug.org._nospam_> wrote:

> Hi,
> If I have a lot of integers and want do something with each digit as
> integer, what is the fastest way to get there? 
> 
> Eg. Make 12345 into an iterable object, like [1,2,3,4,5] or "12345"

Does it matter what order you process the digits, i.e. least-significant 
first vs. most-significant first?  If you can do least first, then you 
might be best off doing something straight-forward like:

i = 12345
while i:
    digit = i % 10
    i = i / 10
    print digit

although, with the new-style division, I'm not sure if you want / or //.