+= overloading?

[John Machin]

"Neil Macneale" <mac4-devnull at theory.org> wrote in message news:<3b2e3554$0$331$8eec23a at newsreader.tycho.net>...
> I am using a list as the data holding element, then appending to it in
> the __iadd__ function. Then I use ''.join(list) to make a string
> when the __str__ function is called.  I am doing this to minimize the
> number of string objects created,  and figure that append runs in
> constant time.  Is join optomized though?  It would defeat the purpose if
> join worked by creating a new string to join the first two, then added
> the third, etc.  I am assumming that join is implemented in C, and runs
> in 0(n) time, where n is the number of total characters.  Am I assuming
> incorrectly?  I looked at string.py's join function, but that just called
> another join method, and I don't know where that one is implemented.

Either (1) don't assume; (a) download the source [doesn't take long]
and look in stringobject.c and/or (b) search this newsgroup --
behaviour of append() and join() just might have been discussed before
or (2) you might reason that join() has been around for a long time
and any far-less-than-optimal algorithm implemented in an extremely
rare moment of whatever by the gurus would have been pounced upon
triumphantly and fixed by one of the many eager kibitzers.