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Trivial performance questions

Terry Reedy tjreedy at udel.edu
Sat Oct 18 15:25:30 EDT 2003 
"Bryan" <belred1 at yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:Klckb.807073$YN5.806740 at sccrnsc01...
> can you explain in more detail why "if x is None:" is better/faster
than "if x == None:"?  i guess i don't fully  understand "is".

'is' means same object (same identity)  For CPython, this is a trivial
comparison of addresses.  == means same value, which comparison
starts, I believe, with calling  type(x) and type(None) to see if they
are comparable.

>  my fingers always seem to want to type "if not x:", but that is
probably worse still since it includes  (), [], {}, '', False, None .

It is good or erroneous depending on whether 'not x' is or is not the
appropriate condition ;-)

Terry J. Reedy
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