Efficiently creating a list of formatted hex values

My background is in C, and I'm finally learning this new-fangled "Python" that all the cool kids are talking about.

I want to create a list of formatted hexadecimal values like so:

['0x00','0x01','0x02','0x03' (...) '0xfe','0xff']

Please note that the leading zero's shouldn't be stripped. For example, I want 0x03, not 0x3.

My first successful attempt was this:

hexlist=list()
tempbytes = bytes(range(256))
for value in tempbytes:
    hexlist.append("0x" + tempbytes[value:value+1].hex())
del tempbytes

But, wow this is ugly. Then I tried to make it more Pythonic ("Pythony"?) like so:

hexlist = ["0x"+bytes(range(256))[x:x+1].hex() for x in bytes(range(256))]

My thoughts:

• OMG! That's harder to read, not easier!

• Not only that, but I had to invoke range twice, which I assume is inefficient.

• I bet there's a much better way that I haven't been exposed to yet...

My questions:

• Is the second much less efficient?

• Is there a better way to do this?

• What's the best thing to do here in keeping with python style?

The shortest and most readable way to do it would probably be

hexlist = [hex(x) for x in range(256)]

Time

Your first : 0.1 ms per loop for \$10^5\$ loops

Your second: 1 ms per loop for \$10^5\$ loops

The above : 0.02 ms per loop for \$10^5\$ loops

I'm unable to com up with a worse example, but there is always a worse way to do it, exactly as there is always preferable way to do it.

Edit
To do this with filled zeros I would suggest to treat the first 10 numbers as a special case.

hexlist = [hex(x) if x > 15 else "{:#04x}".format(x) for x in range(256)]

new time: 0.04 ms. Even if it isn't as pretty.

Edit:

And when considering that format can format binary numbers, why not hex?

hexlist = ["{:#04x}".format(x) for x in range(256)]

I guess that this is hard coded for this range, but anyway.

Time: 0.1ms for per loop for \$10^5\$ loops.

And more edits

Using old style:.

hexlist = ["0x%02x" % n for n in range(256)]

Time: 0.08ms per loop for \$10^5\$ loops.

And specifically generating what we want.

hexlist = ["{:#04x}".format(x) for x in range(16)] + \
              [hex(x) for x in range(16, 256)]

Time: 0.03ms per loop for \$10^5\$ loops.

StackExchange Code Review Q#147160, answer score: 4