Sort with extra variables

[Diez B. Roggisch]

Thomas Dybdahl Ahle schrieb:
> I have a sort function in a python chess program.
> Currently it looks like this:
> 
> def sortMoves (board, table, ply, moves):
>     f = lambda move: getMoveValue (board, table, ply, move)
>     moves.sort(key=f, reverse=True)
>     return moves
> 
> However I'd really like not to use the lambda, as it slows down the code.
> 
> I've thought about saving the extra variables in the global space, but it 
> really feals ugly.
> 
> Do you have any ideas how I can sort these moves the fastest?

First of all, in your case it is somewhat strange to use

f = lambda ...

because then you could as well use

def f(move):
   ....

But that is just a general remark. Regarding the question: I don't see 
how that could possibly become faster without much more insight into 
what you are doing in getMoveValue. As it seems, it is dependend of a 
lot of factors that change often, so caching it isn't a real option. And 
I hope you are aware that the key-method is invoked only _once_ per 
list-item!

Thus it is pretty efficient.

Diez