[newbie] Iterating a list in reverse ?

[Fredrik Lundh]

Andy Dingley <dingbat at codesmiths.com> wrote:

> Python newbie:  I've got this simple task working (in about ten
> different ways), but I'm looking for the "favoured" and "most Python
> like" way.
> 
> Forwards I can do this
> for t in listOfThings:
>     print t
> 
> Now how do I do it in reverse?   In particular, how might I do it if I
> only wanted to iterate part-way through (with a conditional test and a
> break), or if I had a large list ?
> 
> reverse( listOfThings )
> for t in listOfThings:
>     print t

for item in reversed(listOfThings):
     ...

 >>> help(reversed)
Help on class reversed in module __builtin__:

class reversed(object)
  |  reversed(sequence) -> reverse iterator over values of the sequence
  |
  |  Return a reverse iterator

...

> As reverse() operates in-place I often can't do this.

given that lists only hold references to objects, reversing a *copy* of 
the list is a lot more efficient than you may think...

</F>