lint warnings

Duncan Booth duncan.booth at invalid.invalid
Tue Feb 15 09:32:13 EST 2011


Gerald Britton <gerald.britton at gmail.com> wrote:

> I find:
> 
>     map(func, iterable)
> 
> to be "neater" than:
> 
>     [func(item) for item in iterable]
> 
> If nothing else, the "map" version is shorter.

That's only true if you wanted to call an existing function. If you wanted 
to do something involving a more complex expression that you can write 
inline then the list comprehension is shorter.

<snip>
> Also, as already shown, the map version is faster.

In most cases the list comprehension is faster. Try timing it.

C:\Python27>python.exe lib\timeit.py -s "def double(x): return x*2" -s "data=range(10000)" "map(double, data)"
1000 loops, best of 3: 1.82 msec per loop

C:\Python27>python.exe lib\timeit.py -s "def double(x): return x*2" -s "data=range(10000)" "[x*2 for x in data]"
1000 loops, best of 3: 879 usec per loop

map is only likely to be faster if you wanted to call a function in both cases. 
If you have an expression that can be inlined you save the function call 
overhead with the list comprehension.

-- 
Duncan Booth http://kupuguy.blogspot.com



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