does anyone know how to make this faster? it seems that str(x) is the slow part. >>> def foo(): ... t1 = time.time() ... x = 19 ** 314159 ... t2 = time.time() ... y = str(x) ... t3 = time.time() ... print y ... t4 = time.time() ... print t2-t1, t3-t2, t4-t3 ... >>> foo() <snip a print out of a billion numbers> 3.78499984741 230.490999937 0.0700001716614 thanks, bryan