Specifics of List Membership

Question

How does Python (2.6.4, specifically) determine list membership in general? I\'ve run some tests to see what it does:

def main():
    obj = fancy_obj(arg=\'         


        

Answer 1

Here is code from the Python SVN:

static int
list_contains(PyListObject *a, PyObject *el)
{
    Py_ssize_t i;
    int cmp;

    for (i = 0, cmp = 0 ; cmp == 0 && i < Py_SIZE(a); ++i)
        cmp = PyObject_RichCompareBool(el, PyList_GET_ITEM(a, i),
                                           Py_EQ);
    return cmp;
}

so basically it uses the == with the object and each object in the list.