String interning in python with special character

Asked Aug 11 '18 at 14:05

Active Aug 11 '18 at 14:05

Viewed 62 times

I understand that python internally using the string interning concept to map same string in a particular memory location, and that helps in a way to optimise the memory.

>>> a = 'a'
>>> id(a)
>>> 4503208208
>>> b = 'a'
>>> id(b)
>>> 4503208208

But why does special character in a string is handled differently

>>> i = 'a.'
>>> id(i)
>>> 4519365240
>>> j='a.'
>>> id(j)
>>> 4519463824

Why is the same logic and principle not implemented when there is a special character in the string?

asked Aug 11 '18 at 14:05

Arghya Saha

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I believe this is implementation specific – Olivier Melançon Aug 11 '18 at 14:09
But why is that decision taken? There must be a reason for this implementation – Arghya Saha Aug 11 '18 at 14:11
[Here](http://guilload.com/python-string-interning/). – Sraw Aug 11 '18 at 14:23
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@ArghyaSaha At some point, the cost of determining if two strings are in fact identical outweighs the benefit of interning. – chepner Aug 11 '18 at 14:23
@ArghyaSaha short strings (of length zero and one) are, in fact, interned by design in the default 3.x CPython implementation. See e.g. the source code [here](https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/master/Objects/bytesobject.c#L101). – Nelewout Aug 11 '18 at 14:27
@chepner can you please elaborate on it? – Arghya Saha Aug 11 '18 at 16:07

String interning in python with special character

0 Answers0