[Python-Dev] Internal representation of strings and Micropython

[Paul Sokolovsky]

Hello,

On Fri, 06 Jun 2014 11:59:31 -0400
Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu> wrote:

[]

> The other problem is that a small slice view of a large object keeps
> the large object alive, so a view user needs to think carefully about 
> whether to make a copy or create a view, and later to copy views to 
> delete the base object. This is not for beginners.

Yes, so it doesn't make sense to add such feature to any of existing
APIs. However, as I pointed in another mail, it would make lot of sense
to add iterator-based string API (because if dict methods were
*switched* to iterators, why can't string have them *as alternative*),
and for their return values, it would be ~ natural to return "string
views", especially if it's clearly and explicitly described that if
user wants to store them, they should be explicitly copied via
str(view).

One reason against this would be of course API bloat. But API bloat
happens all the time, for example compare this modest proposal
http://bugs.python.org/issue21180 with what's going to be actually
implemented:
http://legacy.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0467/#alternate-constructors .


-- 
Best regards,
 Paul                          mailto:pmiscml at gmail.com