[Python-Dev] Slice as a copy... by design?

[Greg Ewing]

Facundo Batista wrote:

> A thread in PyAr raised the question that, considering that strings
> are immutable, why a slice of a string is a copy and not a reference
> to a part of that string.

Because it would make it too easy to accidentally keep
a large string alive via a reference to a small part
of it.

Some way of explicitly requesting a view into another
string might be desirable, but it shouldn't be the
default behaviour for string slicing.

-- 
Greg