GeezerVison is showing github.com — Intern string representation of operators and some other symbolic literals · Issue #136757 · python/cpython
Intern string representation of operators and some other symbolic literals #136757DescriptionFeature or enhancement
Proposal:
Python currently interns certain strings, such as keywords and some ASCII/Unicode characters, as well as module-specific strings. I propose extending this interning mechanism to the string representations of operators (e.g., "+=", "==", "|=").
Rationale:
Interning these strings could improve performance, particularly in code parsing workflows, by:
- Reducing memory overhead for repeated operator strings.
- Accelerating string comparisons (e.g., during AST construction or bytecode generation).
Target Symbols:
The following multi-character syntactic literals (with len() > 1) are candidates for interning:
# Syntax literals
'...', '->'
# Operators
'**', '//', '==', '!=', '>=', '<=', ':=',
'+=', '-=', '*=', '/=', '//=', '%=', '**=',
'<<', '>>', '<<=', '>>=', '&=', '|=', '^='
# And maybe character sequence that used in REPL?
'>>>'
Considerations:
- The change would be low-risk, as it targets immutable, statically known strings.
- The impact on startup time and memory usage should be negligible, given the small set of operators.
Would this be a worthwhile optimization for CPython? I’d appreciate feedback on the idea and the PoC.
Has this already been discussed elsewhere?
This is a minor feature, which does not need previous discussion elsewhere
Links to previous discussion of this feature:
No response
Linked PRs
Activitychanged the title [-]Intern string representation of operators[/-] [+]Intern string representation of operators and some other symbolic literals[/+] on Jul 18, 2025StanFromIreland commented on Jul 18, 2025 Are you able to provide benchmarks? albertedwardson commented on Jul 18, 2025 ContributorAuthor More actions Thanks for the feedback! I’m currently looking into how to properly benchmark this. I haven’t run the full pyperformance suite yet, but I’m planning to get familiar with it and set it up properly.
In the meantime, would some synthetic microbenchmarks (e.g. repeated AST parsing or string comparison tests) be acceptable as a starting point? I can begin with those while I work toward running more representative, full-suite benchmarks. ZeroIntensity commented on Jul 20, 2025
In the meantime, would some synthetic microbenchmarks (e.g. repeated AST parsing or string comparison tests) be acceptable as a starting point?
Yeah, that'd be great.
I think the change is simple enough that it's worth doing if there are any noticeable performance/memory improvements. Reacted by Albert Eduardovich N. albertedwardson commented on Jul 21, 2025 ContributorAuthor More actions I will continue doing this in a week, now I don’t have the opportunity StanFromIreland commented on Jun 14, 2026 A little ping, as it has been almost a year :-) ZeroIntensity commented on Jun 20, 2026 I think this is still worthwhile, even if the original author has disappeared. Let's apply "easy" for a newcomer to take a stab at this. albertedwardson commented on Jun 20, 2026 ContributorAuthor More actions hi guys
yeah, sorry
i just thought it wouldn't bring any significant improvements anyway, so I abandoned the idea without conducting any benchmarks omkar-334 commented on Jun 20, 2026 hi guys, can i try to work on this ZeroIntensity commented on Jun 20, 2026 Go for it, feel free to tag me for a review. hanamuura commented on Oct 28, 2026
16. hi guys, can i try to work on this
hi. are you still working on it?
MetadataMetadataDevelopmentNo branches or pull requestsIssue actions
|