String concatenation vs. string formatting

[Billy Mays]

On 07/08/2011 04:18 PM, Andrew Berg wrote:
> Is it bad practice to use this
>> logger.error(self.preset_file + ' could not be stored - ' +
>> sys.exc_info()[1])
> Instead of this?
>> logger.error('{file} could not be stored -
>> {error}'.format(file=self.preset_file, error=sys.exc_info()[1]))
>
>
> Other than the case where a variable isn't a string (format() converts
> variables to strings, automatically, right?) and when a variable is used
> a bunch of times, concatenation is fine, but somehow, it seems wrong.
> Sorry if this seems a bit silly, but I'm a novice when it comes to
> design. Plus, there's not really supposed to be "more than one way to do
> it" in Python.
If it means anything, I think concatenation is faster.

__TIMES__
a() -  0.09s
b() -  0.09s
c() - 54.80s
d() -  5.50s

Code is below:

def a(v):
     out = ""
     for i in xrange(1000000):
         out += v
     return len(out)

def b(v):
     out = ""
     for i in xrange(100000):
         out += v+v+v+v+v+v+v+v+v+v
     return len(out)

def c(v):
     out = ""
     for i in xrange(1000000):
         out = "%s%s" % (out, v)
     return len(out)

def d(v):
     out = ""
     for i in xrange(100000):
         out = "%s%s%s%s%s%s%s%s%s%s%s" % (out,v,v,v,v,v,v,v,v,v,v)
     return len(out)

print "a", a('xxxxxxxxxx')
print "b", b('xxxxxxxxxx')
print "c", c('xxxxxxxxxx')
print "d", d('xxxxxxxxxx')

import  profile

profile.run("a('xxxxxxxxxx')")
profile.run("b('xxxxxxxxxx')")
profile.run("c('xxxxxxxxxx')")
profile.run("d('xxxxxxxxxx')")