The following code prints all primes lower than n.
def primes(n):
if n==2: return [2]
elif n<2: return []
s=range(3,n+1,2)
mroot = n ** 0.5
half=(n+1)/2-1
i=0
m=3
while m <= mroot:
if s[i]:
j=(m*m-2)/2
s[j]=0
while j<half:
s[j]=0
j+=m
i=i+1
m=2*i+3
return [2]+[x for x in s if x]
Example:
primes(50)
[2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47]