Re: [Python-Dev] Slice as a copy... by design?

Facundo Batista wrote:

A thread in PyAr raised the question that, considering that strings are immutable, why a slice of a string is a copy and not a reference to a part of that string.

Because it would make it too easy to accidentally keep a large string alive via a reference to a small part of it. Some way of explicitly requesting a view into another string might be desirable, but it shouldn't be the default behaviour for string slicing. -- Greg