[Python-Dev] PEP 414 - Unicode Literals for Python 3

[Serhiy Storchaka]

Some microbenchmarks:

$ python -m timeit -n 10000 -r 100 -s "x = 123" "'foobarbaz_%d' % x"
10000 loops, best of 100: 1.24 usec per loop
$ python -m timeit -n 10000 -r 100 -s "x = 123" "str('foobarbaz_%d') % x"
10000 loops, best of 100: 1.59 usec per loop
$ python -m timeit -n 10000 -r 100 -s "x = 123" "str(u'foobarbaz_%d') % x"
10000 loops, best of 100: 1.58 usec per loop
$ python -m timeit -n 10000 -r 100 -s "x = 123; n = lambda s: s" "n('foobarbaz_%d') % x"
10000 loops, best of 100: 1.41 usec per loop
$ python -m timeit -n 10000 -r 100 -s "x = 123; s = 'foobarbaz_%d'" "s % x"
10000 loops, best of 100: 1.22 usec per loop

There are no significant overhead to use converters.