Returning the product of a list
<p>Is there a more concise, efficient or simply pythonic way to do the following?</p>

<pre><code>def product(list):
    p = 1
    for i in list:
        p *= i
    return p
</code></pre>

<p>EDIT:</p>

<p>I actually find that this is marginally faster than using operator.mul:</p>

<pre><code>from operator import mul
# from functools import reduce # python3 compatibility

def with_lambda(list):
    reduce(lambda x, y: x * y, list)

def without_lambda(list):
    reduce(mul, list)

def forloop(list):
    r = 1
    for x in list:
        r *= x
    return r

import timeit

a = range(50)
b = range(1,50)#no zero
t = timeit.Timer("with_lambda(a)", "from __main__ import with_lambda,a")
print("with lambda:", t.timeit())
t = timeit.Timer("without_lambda(a)", "from __main__ import without_lambda,a")
print("without lambda:", t.timeit())
t = timeit.Timer("forloop(a)", "from __main__ import forloop,a")
print("for loop:", t.timeit())

t = timeit.Timer("with_lambda(b)", "from __main__ import with_lambda,b")
print("with lambda (no 0):", t.timeit())
t = timeit.Timer("without_lambda(b)", "from __main__ import without_lambda,b")
print("without lambda (no 0):", t.timeit())
t = timeit.Timer("forloop(b)", "from __main__ import forloop,b")
print("for loop (no 0):", t.timeit())
</code></pre>

<p>gives me</p>

<pre><code>('with lambda:', 17.755449056625366)
('without lambda:', 8.2084708213806152)
('for loop:', 7.4836349487304688)
('with lambda (no 0):', 22.570688009262085)
('without lambda (no 0):', 12.472226858139038)
('for loop (no 0):', 11.04065990447998)
</code></pre>
