This issue tracker has been migrated to GitHub, and is currently read-only.
For more information, see the GitHub FAQs in the Python's Developer Guide.

classification
Title: Speed up using + for string concatenation
Type: performance Stage:
Components: Interpreter Core Versions:
process
Status: closed Resolution: rejected
Dependencies: Superseder:
Assigned To: Nosy List: Ramchandra Apte, ajaksu2, benjamin.peterson, larry, pitrou, rhettinger
Priority: low Keywords: patch

Created on 2006-10-02 04:04 by larry, last changed 2022-04-11 14:56 by admin. This issue is now closed.

Files
File name Uploaded Description Edit
python.string.concatenation.object.txt larry, 2006-10-02 04:04 Patch with respect to revision 52084.
lch.python.concatenation.2.patch larry, 2006-10-05 22:13 Patch against revision 52195. Cleaned up patch slightly: reduced memory usage slightly, removed marker comments, fixed some comments and some whitespace. review
concat.benchmarks.zip larry, 2006-10-13 07:26 Zip file containing output from pybench and stringbench tests.
lch.python.concatenation.4.patch larry, 2006-10-13 07:28 Patch against revision 52323. Added max() for platforms that don't have it, purged // comments, trimmed lines to below 80 characters. review
concat.test.py larry, 2006-10-13 07:32 My hacked-together benchmark. test #12 is the case I optimized for.
linux.concat.pybench.results.zip larry, 2006-10-13 08:05 Zip file containing output from pybench run on a Linux 2.6 system.
Messages (12)
msg51181 - (view) Author: Larry Hastings (larry) * (Python committer) Date: 2006-10-02 04:04
The core concept: adding two strings together no longer returns a pure
"string" object.  Instead, it returns a "string concatenation" object
which holds references to the two strings but does not actually
concatenate them... yet.  The strings are concatenated only when someone
requests the string's value, at which point it allocates all the space
it needs and renders the concatenated string all at once.

More to the point, if you add multiple strings together (a + b + c),
it *doesn't* compute the intermediate strings (a + b).

Upsides to this approach:
        * String concatenation using + is now the fastest way to
          concatenate strings (that I know of).

        * In particular, prepending is *way* faster than it used to be.
          It used to be a pathological case, n! or something.  Now it's
          linear.

        * Throw off the shackles of "".join([]), you don't need it
          anymore.

        * Did I mention it was faster?

Downsides to this approach:

        * Changes how PyStringObjects are stored internally; ob_sval is
          no longer a char[1], but a char *.  This makes each StringObject
          four bytes larger.

        * Adds another memory dereference in order to get the value of
          a string, which is a teensy-weensy slowdown.

        * Would force a recompile of all C modules that deal directly
          with string objects (which I imagine is most of them).

        * Also, *requires* that C modules use the PyString_AS_STRING()
          macro, rather than casting the object and grabbing ob_sval
          directly.  (I was pleased to see that the Python source
          was very good about using this macro; if all Python C
          modules are this well-behaved, this point is happily moot.)

        * On a related note, the file Mac/Modules/MacOS.c implies
          that there are Mac-specific Python scripts that peer
          directly into string objects.  These would have to be
          changed to understand the new semantics.

        * String concatenation objects are 36 bytes larger than
          string objects, and this space will often go unreclaimed
          after the string is rendered.

        * When rendered, string concatenation objects storing long
          strings will allocate a second buffer from the heap to
          store the string.  So this adds some minor allocation
          overhead (though this is offset by the speed gain from
          the approach overall).

        * Will definitely need some heavy review before it could
          go in, in particular I worry I got the semantics surrounding
          "interned" strings wrong.
msg84466 - (view) Author: Daniel Diniz (ajaksu2) * (Python triager) Date: 2009-03-30 02:34
IIRC, this was rejected as part of a larger string views proposal.
Leaving open so that current performance optimizers can take a look at
this :)
msg84467 - (view) Author: Benjamin Peterson (benjamin.peterson) * (Python committer) Date: 2009-03-30 02:43
I'm rejecting this because previous string "views" have been rejected.
msg84504 - (view) Author: Larry Hastings (larry) * (Python committer) Date: 2009-03-30 04:56
I'm not saying that killing a two-year-old DOA patch is the wrong
move--though I hold out hope that lazy string concatenation in CPython
will yet happen.  But you shouldn't kill this patch just because you
think it has something to do with "string views"--it doesn't.

"String views" were suggested by Josiah Carlson.  A "string view" was a
separate object with a reference to a string (or strings); this patch
changed the implementation of strings directly.  Josiah Carlson would be
the first to point out that "lazy strings" and "string views" were
different:
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-3000/2007-January/005546.html

Here's my take on what happened with "lazy string concatenation".  GvR
asked me to port it to Py3k.  I optimistically combined "lazy string
concatenation" with another optimization, "lazy string slices", and
submitted the combined patch.  GvR examined the two patches together and
disliked it because of the behavior of the "lazy string slices".
http://bugs.python.org/issue1629305
I subsequently tried to drum up interest in lazy concatenation without
lazy string slices:
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-3000/2007-January/005641.html
but there was no strong interest.  Finally, GvR officially rejected the
patch.

I hold out hope that "lazy string concatenation", separate from "lazy
string slices", could still make it in.  (Truthfully, I hope they *both*
could make it in someday, if I did a better job.)  I wouldn't claim
these are a no-brainer--see my original description of the patch for
caveats--but I still think they're worth the tradeoffs.

FWIW, ajaksu2, another implementations of Python *has* already
implemented this approach: PyPy.
http://codespeak.net/pypy/dist/pypy/doc/interpreter-optimizations.html#string-join-objects

Writing for the sake of posterity,

/larry/
msg84540 - (view) Author: Benjamin Peterson (benjamin.peterson) * (Python committer) Date: 2009-03-30 12:18
In that case, I think it's probably ok to reopen until we have a more
definite accept or reject.
msg84541 - (view) Author: Antoine Pitrou (pitrou) * (Python committer) Date: 2009-03-30 12:23
For information, I haven't done any benchmarks, but the StringIO type in
Python 3.1 should be very efficient for this kind of purposes.
msg84756 - (view) Author: Raymond Hettinger (rhettinger) * (Python committer) Date: 2009-03-31 07:26
IIRC, this has already been rejected on python-dev in a number of
discussions (check for "ropes" in the search).  Also, Armin has long ago
implemented some optimizations for string concatenation in a number of
contexts.
msg84789 - (view) Author: Larry Hastings (larry) * (Python committer) Date: 2009-03-31 14:38
rhettinger: It's a bit unfair to paint the lazy string concatenation
patch with the adjective "ropes", then point out ropes have been
rejected many times.  Lazy string concatenation objects are a form of
specialized rope but they don't share the downsides of these other
"ropes" proposals.

The major problems with conventional rope implementations are a)
slowdown, b) complexity, and c) you must use a new API to interact with
them:
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2000-February/002321.html

Lazy string concatenation makes Python faster, it isolates its
complexity locally inside the string object implementation, and it makes
only two changes to the API.  Those two changes are: one, you may no
longer access the string directly, and two, APIs that returned the
internal string (PyString_AsString, PyString_AS_STRING*) may fail in
low-memory conditions.  You don't need to use a new API to interact with
the string; traditional APIs like strchr work fine.

* Those were the names in 2.6 anyway.  I don't know what the modern
names would be in 3.1.
msg84834 - (view) Author: Raymond Hettinger (rhettinger) * (Python committer) Date: 2009-03-31 16:49
I think lazy evaluation was discussed in the same thread.  Either I or
someone else suggested it and there was some issue because the string
struct had long been exposed and people were accessing it directly.
msg84842 - (view) Author: Larry Hastings (larry) * (Python committer) Date: 2009-03-31 17:15
Thanks for pointing that out!  I think I found it; the discussion is
actually about lazy string slices, and it starts here:
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2000-February/002317.html
If I were to resubmit lazy string slices (which wouldn't be in this
patch), the slices would only have weakrefs on the original string and
render when the original string was destroyed.  That addresses some of
the concerns about lazy string slices, though they are still
uncomfortably (internally) complex.

As for the second concern: the official way is to use the accessors, and
CPython consistently uses them itself.  I don't know what the right
answer is.  We *could* make PyStringObject a private type to force the
issue, though that would add overhead.

(Well, PyUnicodeObject really, this would never be accepted in the 2.x
series at this point.)
msg176356 - (view) Author: Ramchandra Apte (Ramchandra Apte) * Date: 2012-11-25 14:21
Buuump.
msg176357 - (view) Author: Benjamin Peterson (benjamin.peterson) * (Python committer) Date: 2012-11-25 14:26
This issue hasn't been touched in years and would certainly need a completely new patch.
History
Date User Action Args
2022-04-11 14:56:20adminsetgithub: 44063
2012-11-25 14:26:00benjamin.petersonsetstatus: open -> closed
resolution: rejected
messages: + msg176357
2012-11-25 14:21:15Ramchandra Aptesetnosy: + Ramchandra Apte
messages: + msg176356
2010-08-11 20:18:44eric.araujolinkissue1590352 superseder
2009-03-31 17:15:26larrysetmessages: + msg84842
2009-03-31 16:49:25rhettingersetmessages: + msg84834
2009-03-31 14:38:28larrysetmessages: + msg84789
2009-03-31 07:26:11rhettingersetnosy: + rhettinger
messages: + msg84756
2009-03-30 12:23:50pitrousetnosy: + pitrou
messages: + msg84541
2009-03-30 12:18:28benjamin.petersonsetstatus: closed -> open
resolution: rejected -> (no value)
messages: + msg84540
2009-03-30 04:56:54larrysetmessages: + msg84504
2009-03-30 02:43:55benjamin.petersonsetstatus: open -> closed

nosy: + benjamin.peterson
messages: + msg84467

resolution: rejected
2009-03-30 02:34:26ajaksu2setpriority: normal -> low
versions: - Python 2.6
nosy: + ajaksu2

messages: + msg84466

type: performance
2006-10-02 04:04:17larrycreate