Ad hoc lists vs ad hoc tuples

Steve Holden steve at holdenweb.com
Wed Jan 27 10:18:20 EST 2010


Iain King wrote:
> On Jan 27, 10:20 am, Floris Bruynooghe <floris.bruynoo... at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>> One thing I ofter wonder is which is better when you just need a
>> throwaway sequence: a list or a tuple?  E.g.:
>>
>> if foo in ['some', 'random', 'strings']:
>>     ...
>> if [bool1, bool2, boo3].count(True) != 1:
>>    ...
>>
>> (The last one only works with tuples since python 2.6)
>>
>> Is a list or tuple better or more efficient in these situations?
>>
>> Regards
>> Floris
>>
>> PS: This is inspired by some of the space-efficiency comments from the
>> list.pop(0) discussion.
> 
> I tend to use tuples unless using a list makes it easier to read.  For
> example:
> 
> if foo in ('some', 'random', 'strings'):
> 
> draw.text((10,30), "WHICH IS WHITE", font=font)
> draw.line([(70,25), (85,25), (105,45)])
> 
> I've no idea what the performance difference is; I've always assumed
> it's negligible.
> 
The fact that you have felt able to neglect the performance difference
makes it quite literally negligible.

regards
 Steve
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