Naive idiom questions

[Grant Edwards]

On 2008-01-31, Terran Melconian <te_rem_ra_ove_an_forspam at consistent.org> wrote:

> * Why are there no real mutable strings available?

[...]

>     I want to be able to accumulate a string with +=, not by going
>     through an intermediate list and then doing ''.join(),

So what's stopping you?

>>> s = "one"
>>> s += " two"
>>> s
'one two'
>>> 

>     because I think the latter is ugly.

Then don't do it. :)

>     There are also times when I'd like to use the string as a
>     modifiable buffer.

That would be an array of characters or bytes:

  http://docs.python.org/lib/module-array.html

>     Is the python idiom that this is actually the Right Thing for
>     reasons I'm not seeing?

I'm not sure what you're asking.  AFAIK, the main reason that
strings are immutable is so they can be used as dict keys.

>     Is there a fundamental reason it would be hard to
>     implement a mutable string in cpython?

What problem would a mutable string solve that an array of
chars won't?

> * What's the best way to initialize a list of lists?

Hmm. I guess I never need to do that.

> * Is there a way to get headings in docstrings?

Docstrings?  Real Men Don't Write Docstrings!

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