This avoids incrementing an index variable but ultimately has the same cost as the original version. Walking the list backwards: while processingdata:įor i in xrange(len(somelist) - 1, -1, -1): Not only is this not very elegant, but I am hoping there is better way to do it that remains time and memory efficient. This is the original solution I came up with.

Which one is the best candidate ? Keeping a local index: while processingdata: I have studied what I could find on the internet and have summarized my different options below. I am hoping to find a solution that is cost effective (time and memory-wise). Furthermore, since the number of items to delete is approximately proportional to the number of elements in the list this results in an O(N^2) algorithm.

It seems that deleting one item out of a Python list costs O(N) since Python has to copy all the items above the element at hand down one place. My concern is the following: I am storing a relativity large dataset in a classical python list and in order to process the data I must iterate over the list several times, perform some operations on the elements, and often pop an item out of the list.

Wise memory optimizer serial numbers