> Hum, since your code is not syntactically correct, anything will run > faster :)
in fact it parses, I was fooled by this line >> if k in range(1,len(prunedK),1) & i+k <= len(prunedK) -1: I was fooled because the form "k in range(" tends to imply a for statement ; in the case of an if statement, one usually uses chained comparisons instead. If you know i>=0 and i,k are integers (as is implied by context), you could simply write something like: if 0 < k < i+k < len(prunedK) : in the contrary case, assuming your line does what you want, you should really write it as if 1 <= k < len(prunedK) and i+k <= len(prunedK)-1 : or more concisely if 1 <= k < len(prunedK) >= i+k+1 : or even if i+k < len(prunedK) > k > 0 : -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list