Implementing a Flexible String Representation for Python Based on PEP 393

by Torsten Becker for Python Software Foundation

The goal of this project is to implement a new string representation for Python to reduce the memory footprint produced by Unicode strings. During this project, I will implement the design outlined in PEP 393 and port critical parts of core Python and the standard library to the new API. I will also profile the memory reduction and speed penalty of my implementation with specific micro-benchmarks and Django example applications to validate that the PEP provides the promised gains.