Tests added in b923eeaf8162 exposed a bug in str.partition() and str.rpartition() in 3.4 on big-endian platforms. It should exist in 3.3 too. It likely was fixed in 3.5 in issue23573.

http://buildbot.python.org/all/builders/PPC64%20PowerLinux%203.4/builds/913/steps/test/logs/stdio
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FAIL: test_partition (test.test_unicode.UnicodeTest)
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Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/shager/cpython-buildarea/3.4.edelsohn-powerlinux-ppc64/build/Lib/test/test_unicode.py", line 383, in test_partition
    left + right, 'partition', delim)
  File "/home/shager/cpython-buildarea/3.4.edelsohn-powerlinux-ppc64/build/Lib/test/string_tests.py", line 63, in checkequal
    realresult
AssertionError: Tuples differ: ('bbbbbbbbbaaaaaaaaa', '', '') != ('', '𐌂', '\x00\x00b\x00\x00\x00b\x00\x00\x00b\x00\x00\x00b\x00\x00')

First differing element 0:
bbbbbbbbbaaaaaaaaa


- ('bbbbbbbbbaaaaaaaaa', '', '')
+ ('', '𐌂', '\x00\x00b\x00\x00\x00b\x00\x00\x00b\x00\x00\x00b\x00\x00')

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FAIL: test_rpartition (test.test_unicode.UnicodeTest)
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Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/shager/cpython-buildarea/3.4.edelsohn-powerlinux-ppc64/build/Lib/test/test_unicode.py", line 399, in test_rpartition
    left + right, 'rpartition', delim)
  File "/home/shager/cpython-buildarea/3.4.edelsohn-powerlinux-ppc64/build/Lib/test/string_tests.py", line 63, in checkequal
    realresult
AssertionError: Tuples differ: ('', '', 'bbbbbbbbbaaaaaaaaa') != ('\x00\x00\x00b\x00\x00\x00b\x00\x00\x00b\x00\x00\x00b\x00', '𐌂', '')

First differing element 0:

bbbb

- ('', '', 'bbbbbbbbbaaaaaaaaa')
+ ('\x00\x00\x00b\x00\x00\x00b\x00\x00\x00b\x00\x00\x00b\x00', '𐌂', '')

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'bbbbbbbbbaaaaaaaaa'.partition('\U00010302') returns ('', '𐌂', '\x00\x00b\x00\x00\x00b\x00\x00\x00b\x00\x00\x00b\x00\x00')
'bbbbbbbbbaaaaaaaaa'.rpartition('\U00010302') returns ('\x00\x00\x00b\x00\x00\x00b\x00\x00\x00b\x00\x00\x00b\x00', '𐌂', '')