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GH-119518: Stop interning strings in pathlib by barneygale · Pull Request #123356 · python/cpython · GitHub
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@barneygale
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@barneygale barneygale commented Aug 26, 2024

Remove sys.intern(str(x)) calls when normalizing a path in pathlib. This speeds up str(Path('foo/bar')) by about 10%.

As mentioned in the issue, I've never been able to establish if/when string interning is useful in pathlib, nor that we're using it in the best way. It feels negligent to leave it in the code.

Remove `sys.intern(str(x))` calls when normalizing a path in pathlib. This
speeds up `str(Path('foo/bar'))` by about 10%.
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LGTM. I am not convinced that interning strings is a good idea according to issues listed in #119518.

@encukou encukou merged commit 5002f17 into python:main Sep 2, 2024
@barneygale
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Thank you both!

@geertj
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geertj commented Oct 23, 2024

Can this be back ported to 3.13? The interning causes memory usage to grow indefinitely on a free threaded build.

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Can this be back ported to 3.13? The interning causes memory usage to grow indefinitely on a free threaded build.

IMO it's too late to backport such change. cc @colesbury

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Maybe we could consider something like the following in 3.13:

if sysconfig.get_config_var("Py_GIL_DISABLED"):
    return drv, root, [x for x in rel.split(sep) if x and x != '.']

parsed = [sys.intern(str(x)) for x in rel.split(sep) if x and x != '.']
return drv, root, parsed

In other words, avoid interning in the free-threaded build, but don't change the behavior in the 3.13 default build.

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5 participants