Is it inefficient to access a python class member container in a loop statement?
- by Dave
Hi there.
I'm trying to adopt some best practices to keep my python code efficient. I've heard that accessing a member variable inside of a loop can incur a dictionary lookup for every iteration of the loop, so I cache these in local variables to use inside the loop.
My question is about the loop statement itself... if I have the following class:
class A(object):
def init(self)
self.myList = [ 'a','b','c', 'd', 'e' ]
Does the following code in a member function incur one, or one-per-loop-iteration (5) dictionary lookups?
for letter in self.myList:
print letter
IE, should I adopt the following pattern, if I am concerned about efficiency...
localList = self.myList
for letter in localList:
print letter
or is that actually LESS efficient due to the local variable assign?
Note, I am aware that early optimization is a dangerous pitfall if I'm concerned about the overall efficiency of code development. Here I am specifically asking about the efficiency of the code, not the coding.
Thanks in advance!
D
