Quickest way to build a long string?

[Aahz Maruch]

In article <u3abuskq55oiugpuafh3fqdkl45s7am6vh at 4ax.com>,
Dale Strickland-Clark  <dale at out-think.NOSPAM.co.uk> wrote:
>
>String operations of this type tend to be memory thrashers so I was
>wondering if anyone had conducted any tests to see which of the
>approaches available might be the most efficient.
>
>1. multiple string concetenation. (html = html + cell)
>2. build list of components then use join at the end to make a string
>3. something even cleverer

I would use the % operator to build up the small strings (as someone
else mentioned, "<td>%s</td>" % value is extremely handy) and either
string.join() or cStringIO.  I usually use string.join() unless some
other part of my program wants a file object.
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