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

NumPy is the appropriate tool for a large, fixed-size, homogeneous array. Accessing individual elements of anything in Python isn't going to be all that fast, though whole-array operations can often be conducted at speeds similar to C or Fortran. If you need to do operations on millions and millions of elements individually quickly, there is only so much you can get out of Python.

What sort of algorithm are you implementing? How do you know that using sparse arrays is too slow if you haven't tried it? What do you mean by "efficient"? You want quick initialization? That is the bottleneck of your code?