xrange and 今日单词

xrange([start], stop[, step])
This function is very similar to range(), but returns an “xrange object” instead of a list. This is an opaque sequence type which yields the same values as the corresponding list,[b] without actually storing them all simultaneously.[/b] The advantage of xrange() over range() is minimal (since xrange() still has to create the values when asked for them) except when a very large range is used on a memory-starved machine or when all of the range’s elements are never used (such as when the loop is usually terminated with break).

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

range(10000)将直接展开为一个含有10000个元素的列表，需占用较多资源。
xrange(10000)将生成一个迭代器，对其遍历时都是遍历到某一个元素，这个元素才真正计算出来放到内存中。

[url]http://stackoverflow.com/questions/94935/what-is-the-difference-between-range-and-xrange[/url]

conservative 保守的
narcissistic numbers 水仙花数
holy grail 圣杯