What is the difference between the range and xrange functions?

The difference between range and xrange lies in how they handle memory:

range:

In Python 2, it creates a list of numbers in memory all at once, which can use a lot of memory for large ranges.

In Python 3, range behaves like xrange (explained below) and is more memory-efficient.

xrange (Python 2 only):

It generates numbers one at a time using an iterator, so it uses much less memory.

Key Point:

In Python 3, there is no xrange. The range function in Python 3 is optimized to work like Python 2’s xrange, making it memory-efficient.