What about just using pop(0)?

list.pop([i])

Remove the item at the given position in the list, and return it. If no index is specified, a.pop() removes and returns the last item in the list. (The square brackets around the i in the method signature denote that the parameter is optional, not that you should type square brackets at that position. You will see this notation frequently in the Python Library Reference.)

Numpy can do this using the roll command:

>>> import numpy
>>> a=numpy.arange(1,10) #Generate some data
>>> numpy.roll(a,1)
array([9, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8])
>>> numpy.roll(a,-1)
array([2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 1])
>>> numpy.roll(a,5)
array([5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 1, 2, 3, 4])
>>> numpy.roll(a,9)
array([1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9])

It depends on what you want to have happen when you do this:

>>> shift([1,2,3], 14)

You might want to change your:

def shift(seq, n):
    return seq[n:]+seq[:n]

to:

def shift(seq, n):
    n = n % len(seq)
    return seq[n:] + seq[:n]

Simplest way I can think of:

a.append(a.pop(0))

Just some notes on timing:

If you're starting with a list, l.append(l.pop(0)) is the fastest method you can use. This can be shown with time complexity alone:

• deque.rotate is O(k) (k=number of elements)
• list to deque conversion is O(n)
• list.append and list.pop are both O(1)

So if you are starting with deque objects, you can deque.rotate() at the cost of O(k). But, if the starting point is a list, the time complexity of using deque.rotate() is O(n). l.append(l.pop(0) is faster at O(1).

Just for the sake of illustration, here are some sample timings on 1M iterations:

Methods which require type conversion:

• deque.rotate with deque object: 0.12380790710449219 seconds (fastest)
• deque.rotate with type conversion: 6.853878974914551 seconds
• np.roll with nparray: 6.0491721630096436 seconds
• np.roll with type conversion: 27.558452129364014 seconds

List methods mentioned here:

• l.append(l.pop(0)): 0.32483696937561035 seconds (fastest)
• "shiftInPlace": 4.819645881652832 seconds
• ...

Timing code used is below.

collections.deque

Showing that creating deques from lists is O(n):

from collections import deque
import big_o

def create_deque_from_list(l):
     return deque(l)

best, others = big_o.big_o(create_deque_from_list, lambda n: big_o.datagen.integers(n, -100, 100))
print best

# --> Linear: time = -2.6E-05 + 1.8E-08*n

If you need to create deque objects:

1M iterations @ 6.853878974914551 seconds

setup_deque_rotate_with_create_deque = """
from collections import deque
import random
l = [random.random() for i in range(1000)]
"""

test_deque_rotate_with_create_deque = """
dl = deque(l)
dl.rotate(-1)
"""
timeit.timeit(test_deque_rotate_with_create_deque, setup_deque_rotate_with_create_deque)

If you already have deque objects:

1M iterations @ 0.12380790710449219 seconds

setup_deque_rotate_alone = """
from collections import deque
import random
l = [random.random() for i in range(1000)]
dl = deque(l)
"""

test_deque_rotate_alone= """
dl.rotate(-1)
"""
timeit.timeit(test_deque_rotate_alone, setup_deque_rotate_alone)