Python 2.7 Array vs Set Performance

test.py

import timeit

print 'set/array of numbers'
print ''

print 'first in set:', timeit.timeit('1 in set([1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9])', number=10000000)
print 'last in set: ', timeit.timeit('9 in set([1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9])', number=10000000)
print 'not in set:  ', timeit.timeit('0 in set([1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9])', number=10000000)
print ''

print 'first in array:', timeit.timeit('1 in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]', number=10000000)
print 'last in array: ', timeit.timeit('9 in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]', number=10000000)
print 'not in array:  ', timeit.timeit('0 in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]', number=10000000)
print ''

print 'set/array of strings'
print ''

print 'first in set:', timeit.timeit('"abc" in set(["abc", "def", "ghi", "jkl", "mno", "pqr", "stu", "vqx", "yz"])', number=10000000)
print 'last in set: ', timeit.timeit('"yz" in set(["abc", "def", "ghi", "jkl", "mno", "pqr", "stu", "vqx", "yz"])', number=10000000)
print 'not in set:  ', timeit.timeit('"123" in set(["abc", "def", "ghi", "jkl", "mno", "pqr", "stu", "vqx", "yz"])', number=10000000)
print ''

print 'first in array:', timeit.timeit('"abc" in ["abc", "def", "ghi", "jkl", "mno", "pqr", "stu", "vqx", "yz"]', number=10000000)
print 'last in array: ', timeit.timeit('"yz" in ["abc", "def", "ghi", "jkl", "mno", "pqr", "stu", "vqx", "yz"]', number=10000000)
print 'not in array:  ', timeit.timeit('"123" in ["abc", "def", "ghi", "jkl", "mno", "pqr", "stu", "vqx", "yz"]', number=10000000)

test.py output

set/array of numbers

first in set: 6.70800304413
last in set:  6.68770003319
not in set:   6.62914586067

first in array: 0.256216049194
last in array:  1.4436621666
not in array:   1.56732106209

set/array of strings

first in set: 6.3961379528
last in set:  6.45437002182
not in set:   6.5248670578

first in array: 0.362590074539
last in array:  1.15092992783
not in array:   1.27027010918