Efficient Python array with 100 million zeros?

Question

What is an efficient way to initialize and access elements of a large array in Python?

I want to create an array in Python with 100 million entries, unsigned 4-byte

Answer 1

If

• access speed of array.array is acceptable for your application
• compact storage is most important
• you want to use standard modules (no NumPy dependency)
• you are on platforms that have /dev/zero

the following may be of interest to you. It initialises array.array about 27 times faster than array.array('L', [0]*size):

myarray = array.array('L')
f = open('/dev/zero', 'rb')
myarray.fromfile(f, size)
f.close()

On How to initialise an integer array.array object with zeros in Python I'm looking for an even better way.