I'm sure that Python will never be as efficient as C in that regard
(although PyPy might argue the point) but is there something we can do
to ameliorate this? If we could make char-by-char processing only 10
times less efficient than C instead of 100 times (let's say...) perhaps
that would help Ram (and you?) with your use-cases?
Does that mean I'll have to write that character-by-character algorithm? I could already do that now I guess, the speed doesn't matter for my use case, but I'm trying to avoid writing an algorithm.