filter与ifilter

最近在学习python的itertools模块，发现该模块有一个ifilter方法，原型如下:

itertools.ifilter(predicate, iterable) 

该方法乍一看与内置函数filter:

filter(function, iterable) 

非常类似，但是两者是决然不同的，以下官方文档对filter的介绍，其中提到了这两个函数：

Filter construct a list from those elements of iterable for which function returns true. iterable may be either a sequence, a container which supports iteration, or an iterator.
If iterable is a string or a tuple, the result also has that type; otherwise it is always a list.
If function is None, the identity function is assumed, that is, all elements of iterable that are false are removed.
Note that filter(function, iterable) is equivalent to [item for item in iterable if function(item)] if function is not None and [item for item in iterable if item] if function is None.
See itertools.ifilter() and itertools.ifilterfalse() for iterator versions of this function, including a variation that filters for elements where the function returns false.

filter函数的返回值是list或string，他其实相当于一个列表生成式，ifilter是filter的迭代器版本，它的返回值是一个iterator。

这就引出了一个问题，一个函数返回list和返回iterator有什么差异，以及各自的使用场合是什么？

经过我的测试，我发现：

 list(itertools.ifilter(predicate, iterable))

与

filter(predicate, iterable)

是等价的。