Help: Quick way to test if value lies within a list of lists of ranges?

[Ben O'Steen]

Scenario:
=========

Using PyGame in particular, I am trying to write an application that will
run a scripted timeline of events, eg at 5.5 seconds, play xxx.mp3 and put
the image of a ball on screen, at 7.8 seconds move the ball up and down.
At this point, I hear you say 'Oh, like Flash'.

Yes, well... Like Flash, but I don't want to take this app in the same
direction as Macromedia took Flash, nor do I (ever) want the two to be
compatible.

One particular need is for the timeline to be quickly traversable. If I
want to go to time=239.4 seconds, I'd like it to go there pretty much
painlessly and hopefully with one call. (Same with play, reverse and pause
really) I also want it to play for a long duration, with lots of different
items (images, audio, etc.)

Let me be a little more specific:

sprite(a) -> (onscreen during) 2 - 10 secs, 20 - 50 secs
sprite(b) -> (onscreen during) 15 - 30 secs
sprite(c) -> (onscreen during) 42 - 50 secs
....

I need a quick way to rattle off a list of sprites that should be on
screen at a given time. Needless to say the number of sprites will be
variable, and might even change unpredictably in game.

E.G.

onscreen(time = 8.8 secs): return [sprite(a)]

onscreen(time = 44.134 secs): return [sprite(a), sprite(c)]

onscreen(time = 28 secs): return [sprite(a), sprite(b)]

(NB Anything from 10 -> 200 sprites would be normal intended usage, each
set -up with a list of start,stop times.)

Any suggestions on a clever way to do this? I don't like the idea of
looping through 100+ sprites and test them each an arbitary number of
times every update. Is this just something unavoidable which should be
written in C for speed and included with SWIG or something similar?

Ben

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