When list is not the best option (Python)

#python #programming #language #datastructure #efficiency

List are flexible but not suitable for all the time
array.array can be used when the sequence of numbers are only numbers, saving memory
bytes and bytearray can be used for images
memoryviews are used when you want to use slices of arrays. They are generalized Numpy arrays. They shared memory bnetween data structures without the need to copy it.

>>> octets = array('B', range(6))
>>> m1 = memoryview(octets)
>>> m1.tolist()
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
>>> m2 = m1.cast('B', [2, 3])
>>> m2.tolist()
[[0, 1, 2], [3, 4, 5]]
>>> m3 = m1.cast('B', [3, 2])
>>> m3.tolist()
[[0, 1], [2, 3], [4, 5]]
>>> m2[1,1] = 22
>>> m3[1,1] = 33
>>> octets
array('B', [0, 1, 2, 33, 22, 5])

>>> numbers = array('h', [-2, -1, 0, 1, 2])
>>> memv = memoryview(numbers)
>>> len(memv)
5
>>> memv[0]
-2
>>> memv_oct = memv.cast('B')
>>> memv_oct.tolist()
[254, 255, 255, 255, 0, 0, 1, 0, 2, 0]
>>> memv_oct[5] = 4
>>> numbers
array('h', [-2, -1, 1024, 1, 2]) # Here we change the bits 0000010000000000

References

Ramalho, 2022, p59-70