Counter to the PythonSpeed/PerformanceTips, on python 2.4 the following string concatenation is almost twice as fast:

   1 from time import time
   2 t = time()
   3 
   4 s = 'lksdajflakjdsflku09uweoir'
   5 for x in range(40):
   6     s += s[len(s)/2:]
   7     
   8 print 'duration:', time()-t

as:

   1 from time import time
   2 t = time()
   3 
   4 s = 'lksdajflakjdsflku09uweoir'
   5 for x in range(40):
   6     s = "".join((s, s[len(s)/2:]))
   7     
   8 print 'duration:', time()-t

On the win32 Python 2.4 I'm seeing the join sample above complete in less than half the time of the concatenating sample.

• -db

Usually the join() is located outside the loop, that code makes this extremely hard though (becuase of the self-referencing of the generated string). But that situation is not the norm. -- JürgenHermann DateTime(2005-08-01T06:07:51Z)

Are you guys kidding? The whole page is contrieved. Correct implementation of "join" is:

from time import time
t = time()

s = 'lksdajflakjdsflku09uweoir'
r = [s]
for x in range(40):
    r.append(s[len(s)/2:])
s = "".join(r)

print 'duration:', time()-t

which gives on PythonWin 2.4 (#60, Nov 30 2004, 09:34:21) [MSC v.1310 32 bit (Intel)] on win32 execution times:

1st  duration: 54.4060001373
Last duration: 0.0160000324249

-- -- MikeRovner DateTime(2005-08-02T10:19:06Z)

• Mike, that code generates a very different (and much shorter) s. Note how the original code takes the half of the preconcatenated s, making the size grow exponentially (which generates megabytes of data). -- JürgenHermann DateTime(2005-08-30T18:44:05Z)