map with list


Here too you can use the list function to convert all the values at once, but there is an advantage of keeping it as a map object. Not only the size that we already saw with the range case, but also the processing time saved by not calculating the results till you actually need it.

Imagine a case where you apply several expensive (time consuming) transformations to some original list and then you iterate over the end-results looking for the first value that matches some condition. What if you find the value you were looking for after only a few iteration. Then making all that expensive calculations to the whole list was a waste of time.

This lazy evaluation can help you save both memory and time and you always have the option to force the immediate calculation by calling the list function.


examples/functional/map_list.py
def double(num):
    return 2 * num

numbers = [1, 2, 3, 4]

double_numbers = list(map(double, numbers))
print(double_numbers)

[2, 4, 6, 8]