Best way to extract an item from a set of len 1

[Fredrik Lundh]

Tim Chase wrote:

> I suppose I was looking for something like
>
> >>> item = s.aslist()[0]
>
> which feels a little more pythonic (IMHO).  Is one solution
> preferred for speed over others (as this is happening in a fairly
> deeply nested loop)?

the obvious solution is

    item = list(s)[0]

but that seems to be nearly twice as slow as [x for x in s][0]
under 2.4.  hmm.

here's a faster variant:

    item = iter(s).next()

but at least on my machine, your two-step solution

    item = s.pop(); s.add(item)

seems to be even faster.

</F>