5.12 collections -- High-performance container datatypes

New in version 2.4.

This module implements high-performance container datatypes. Currently, the only datatype is a deque. Future additions may include B-trees and Fibonacci heaps.

deque(

[iterable])

Returns a new deque objected initialized left-to-right (using append()) with data from iterable. If iterable is not specified, the new deque is empty.

Deques are a generalization of stacks and queues (the name is pronounced ``deck'' and is short for ``double-ended queue''). Deques support thread-safe, memory efficient appends and pops from either side of the deque with approximately the same O(1) performance in either direction.

Though list objects support similar operations, they are optimized for fast fixed-length operations and incur O(n) memory movement costs for "pop(0)" and "insert(0, v)" operations which change both the size and position of the underlying data representation. New in version 2.4.

Deque objects support the following methods:

append(

x)

Add x to the right side of the deque.

appendleft(

x)

Add x to the left side of the deque.

clear(

)

Remove all elements from the deque leaving it with length 0.

extend(

iterable)

Extend the right side of the deque by appending elements from the iterable argument.

extendleft(

iterable)

Extend the left side of the deque by appending elements from iterable. Note, the series of left appends results in reversing the order of elements in the iterable argument.

pop(

)

Remove and return an element from the right side of the deque. If no elements are present, raises an IndexError.

popleft(

)

Remove and return an element from the left side of the deque. If no elements are present, raises an IndexError.

rotate(

n)

Rotate the deque n steps to the right. If n is negative, rotate to the left. Rotating one step to the right is equivalent to: "d.appendleft(d.pop())".

In addition to the above, deques support iteration, pickling, "len(d)", "reversed(d)", "copy.copy(d)", "copy.deepcopy(d)", membership testing with the in operator, and subscript references such as "d[-1]".

Example:

>>> from collections import deque
>>> d = deque('ghi')                 # make a new deque with three items
>>> for elem in d:                   # iterate over the deque's elements
...     print elem.upper()	
G
H
I

>>> d.append('j')                    # add a new entry to the right side
>>> d.appendleft('f')                # add a new entry to the left side
>>> d                                # show the representation of the deque
deque(['f', 'g', 'h', 'i', 'j'])

>>> d.pop()                          # return and remove the rightmost item
'j'
>>> d.popleft()                      # return and remove the leftmost item
'f'
>>> list(d)                          # list the contents of the deque
['g', 'h', 'i']
>>> d[0]                             # peek at leftmost item
'g'
>>> d[-1]                            # peek at rightmost item
'i'

>>> list(reversed(d))                # list the contents of a deque in reverse
['i', 'h', 'g']
>>> 'h' in d                         # search the deque
True
>>> d.extend('jkl')                  # add multiple elements at once
>>> d
deque(['g', 'h', 'i', 'j', 'k', 'l'])
>>> d.rotate(1)                      # right rotation
>>> d
deque(['l', 'g', 'h', 'i', 'j', 'k'])
>>> d.rotate(-1)                     # left rotation
>>> d
deque(['g', 'h', 'i', 'j', 'k', 'l'])

>>> deque(reversed(d))               # make a new deque in reverse order
deque(['l', 'k', 'j', 'i', 'h', 'g'])
>>> d.clear()                        # empty the deque
>>> d.pop()                          # cannot pop from an empty deque
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#6>", line 1, in -toplevel-
    d.pop()
IndexError: pop from an empty deque

>>> d.extendleft('abc')              # extendleft() reverses the input order
>>> d
deque(['c', 'b', 'a'])

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Release 2.4.4c1, documentation updated on 11 October 2006.