Are list-comprehensions and functional functions faster than “for loops”?

Question

In terms of performance in Python, is a list-comprehension, or functions like map(), filter() and reduce() faster than a for loop? Why

Answer 1

I have managed to modify some of @alpiii's code and discovered that List comprehension is a little faster than for loop. It might be caused by int(), it is not fair between list comprehension and for loop.

from functools import reduce
import datetime

def time_it(func, numbers, *args):
    start_t = datetime.datetime.now()
    for i in range(numbers):
        func(args[0])
    print (datetime.datetime.now()-start_t)

def square_sum1(numbers):
    return reduce(lambda sum, next: sum+next*next, numbers, 0)

def square_sum2(numbers):
    a = []
    for i in numbers:
        a.append(i*2)
    a = sum(a)
    return a

def square_sum3(numbers):
    sqrt = lambda x: x*x
    return sum(map(sqrt, numbers))

def square_sum4(numbers):
    return(sum([i*i for i in numbers]))

time_it(square_sum1, 100000, [1, 2, 5, 3, 1, 2, 5, 3])
time_it(square_sum2, 100000, [1, 2, 5, 3, 1, 2, 5, 3])
time_it(square_sum3, 100000, [1, 2, 5, 3, 1, 2, 5, 3])
time_it(square_sum4, 100000, [1, 2, 5, 3, 1, 2, 5, 3])

0:00:00.101122 #Reduce

0:00:00.089216 #For loop

0:00:00.101532 #Map

0:00:00.068916 #List comprehension