[Tutor] Binary search question

[Emile van Sebille]

On 4/23/2010 7:05 AM Robert Berman said...
> Hi,
>
> Given a list, list1 having 100,000 non repeating, sorted integers ,  which of
> the following methods is fastest to find an item fully understanding the item
> may or may not be in the list: The binary search method which is the standard
> search for such a small sample size, or the more python type statement is
> <value>  in list1?
>
> What I am really trying to ascertain is how expensive or how efficient is  'is
> <value>  in list1'.


It's expensive enough that for a list this size I'd convert it to a dict 
and use in on that.  eg,

a = range(100000)
d = dict(zip(a,a))

55555 in d


Emile