bisect

from bisect import bisect_left

a = ['liu', 'yuan', 'is', 'a', 'chinese']

bisect_left(a, 'is')

此模块可以查找已知的element在序列中的index（从左向右找出第一个）

Python Doc

http://docs.python.org/release/2.5/lib/module-bisect.html

bisect_left(

list, item[, lo[, hi]])

Locate the proper insertion point for  item in  list to maintain sorted order. The parameters  lo and  hi may be used to specify a subset of the list which should be considered; by default the entire list is used. If  item is already present in  list, the insertion point will be before (to the left of) any existing entries. The return value is suitable for use as the first parameter to  list.insert(). This assumes that  list is already sorted.  New in version 2.1.