reduce vs. for loop

[Andy Gimblett]

On Tue, Mar 26, 2002 at 08:29:36AM +0100, m2 at plusseven.com wrote:
> 
> Just out curiosity, 
> why is fact2 a bit faster than fact1?
> 
> def fact1(n):
>     return reduce (operator.mul, range(1L,n + 1))
> 
> def fact2(n):
>     result = n * 1L
>     for i in range(1 , n):
>         result *= i
>     return result

Function call overhead in Python is bigger than for loop overhead.

That sentence is taken from this page, which you might find
interesting:

    http://www.python.org/doc/essays/list2str.html

HTH,

Andy

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