title: Python numpy array vs list
body: <p>I need to perform some calculations a large list of numbers.</p>
  
  <p>Do array.array or numpy.array offer significant performance boost over typical arrays?</p>
  
  <p>I don't have to do complicated manipulations on the arrays, I just need to be able to access and modify values,</p>
  
  <p>e.g.</p>
  
  <pre><code>import numpy
  x = numpy.array([0] * 1000000)
  for i in range(1,len(x)):
    x[i] = x[i-1] + i
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>So I will not really be needing concatenation, slicing, etc.</p>
  
  <p>Also, it looks like array throws an error if I try to assign values that don't fit in C long:</p>
  
  <pre><code>import numpy
  a = numpy.array([0])
  a[0] += 1232234234234324353453453
  print(a)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>On console I get:</p>
  
  <pre><code>a[0] += 1232234234234324353453453
  OverflowError: Python int too large to convert to C long
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Is there a variation of array that lets me put in unbounded Python integers?
  Or would doing it that way take away the point of having arrays in the first place?</p>