Python equivalent of Java StringBuffer?

Question

Is there anything in Python like Java\'s StringBuffer? Since strings are immutable in Python too, editing them in loops would be inefficient.

Answer 1

In the top answer, the link from "Efficient String Concatenation in Python" no longer links to the intended page (redirects to tensorflow.org instead). However, this page from 2004 with the exact code cited probably represents that page https://waymoot.org/home/python_string/ .

You may have seen it already since it comes up first if you google:

         efficient python StringBuilder

I can't leave this in a comment, as I'm not privileged.

Answer 2

I've added to Roee Gavirel's code 2 additional tests that show conclusively that joining lists into strings is not any faster than s += "something".

Results:

Python 2.7.15rc1    

Iterations: 100000
format    done in 0.317540168762s
%s        done in 0.151262044907s
list+join done in 0.0055148601532s
str cat   done in 0.00391721725464s

Python 3.6.7

Iterations: 100000
format    done in 0.35594654083251953s
%s        done in 0.2868080139160156s
list+join done in 0.005924701690673828s
str cat   done in 0.0054128170013427734s
f str     done in 0.12870001792907715s

Code:

from time import time


def _with_cat(i):
    _st = ''
    for i in range(0, i):
        _st += "0"
    return _st


def _with_f_str(i):
    _st = ''
    for i in range(0, i):
        _st = f"{_st}0"
    return _st


def _with_format(i):
    _st = ''
    for i in range(0, i):
        _st = "{}{}".format(_st, "0")
    return _st


def _with_s(i):
    _st = ''
    for i in range(0, i):
        _st = "%s%s" % (_st, "0")
    return _st


def _with_list(i):
    l = []
    for i in range(0, i):
        l.append("0")
    return "".join(l)


def _count_time(name, i, func):
    start = time()
    r = func(i)
    total = time() - start
    print("%s done in %ss" % (name, total))
    return r


iteration_count = 100000

print('Iterations: {}'.format(iteration_count))
r1 = _count_time("format   ", iteration_count, _with_format)
r2 = _count_time("%s       ", iteration_count, _with_s)
r3 = _count_time("list+join", iteration_count, _with_list)
r4 = _count_time("str cat  ", iteration_count, _with_cat)
r5 = _count_time("f str    ", iteration_count, _with_f_str)

if len(set([r1, r2, r3, r4, r5])) != 1:
    print("Not all results are the same!")