Hi All-- Lookup tables are always significantly faster than a bunch of ifs.
Metta, Ivan On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 10:10 AM, Tim Chase <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Ok the problem we had been asked a while back, to do a programming > > exercise (in college) > > That would tell you how many days there are in a month given a > > specific month. > > > > Ok I did my like this (just pseudo): > > > > If month = 1 or 3 or etc .... > > noDays = 31 > > Elseif month = 4 or 6 etc .... > > noDays = 30 > > Else > > noDays = 29 > > (we didn't have to take into account a leap year) > > > > He declared an array and assigned the number of days in a month to its > > own element in an array. Now > > I realise that in this example it would not make a difference in terms > > of efficiency, but it is my belief that if > > there is more data that needed to be assigned(i.e. a couple megs of > > data) it would be simpler (and more efficient) to > > do a compare rather then assigning all that data to an array, since > > you are only going to be using 1 value and the rest > > of the data in the array is useless. > > > > What are everyone else's thoughts on this? > > Well, the standard library offers its opinion: > > >>> import calendar > >>> calendar.mdays > [0, 31, 28, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31] > >>> month = 2 > >>> calendar.mdays[month] > 28 > > If you want the actual number of days, taking leap-years into > consideration > > >>> calendar.monthrange(2008,2)[1] > 29 > >>> calendar.monthrange(2007,2)[1] > 28 > > So the answer is "mu"...let Python do the work for you :) > > -tkc > > > > > > > -- > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list > -- Ivan Van Laningham God N Locomotive Works http://www.pauahtun.org/ http://www.python.org/workshops/1998-11/proceedings/papers/laningham/laningham.html Army Signal Corps: Cu Chi, Class of '70 Author: Teach Yourself Python in 24 Hours -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list