python range xrange

[quote]Help on built-in function range in module __builtin__:

range(...)
range([start,] stop[, step]) -> list of integers

Return a list containing an arithmetic progression of integers.
range(i, j) returns [i, i+1, i+2, ..., j-1]; start (!) defaults to 0.
When step is given, it specifies the increment (or decrement).
For example, range(4) returns [0, 1, 2, 3]. The end point is omitted!
These are exactly the valid indices for a list of 4 elements.[/quote]

根据start与stop指定的范围以及step设定的步长，生成一个list。

>>> range(0,6)
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

step为2的时候

>>> range(0,6,2)
[0, 2, 4]

>>> l=range(0,6)
>>> l
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

[quote]Help on class xrange in module __builtin__:

class xrange(object)
| xrange([start,] stop[, step]) -> xrange object
|
| Like range(), but instead of returning a list, returns an object that
| generates the numbers in the range on demand. For looping, this is
| slightly faster than range() and more memory efficient.
|
| Methods defined here:
|
| __getattribute__(...)
| x.__getattribute__('name') <==> x.name
|
| __getitem__(...)
| x.__getitem__(y) <==> x[y]
|
| __iter__(...)
| x.__iter__() <==> iter(x)
|
| __len__(...)
| x.__len__() <==> len(x)
|
| __reduce__(...)
|
| __repr__(...)
| x.__repr__() <==> repr(x)
|
| __reversed__(...)
| Returns a reverse iterator.
|
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------
| Data and other attributes defined here:
|
| __new__ = <built-in method __new__ of type object>
| T.__new__(S, ...) -> a new object with type S, a subtype of T[/quote]

[b]xrange用法与range完全相同，所不同的是xrange生成的不是一个数组，而是一个generators[/b]

>>> list(xrange(0,6))
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
>>> list(xrange(0,6,2))
[0, 2, 4]

[b]因为xrange生成的是一个generators而不是数组，所以当数据很大的时候，使用xrange是有很大优势的。[/b]

>>> lst = range(0,7)
>>> lst
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
>>> for i in range((len(lst)-2)/2,-1,-1):
...     print i
...
2
1
0

>>> for i in range(len(lst)-1,-1,-1):
...     print i
...
6
5
4
3
2
1
0

参考资料：
http://docs.python.org/2/library/functions.html
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/94935/what-is-the-difference-between-range-and-xrange