What does python sys getsizeof for string return?

Question

What does sys.getsizeof return for a standard string? I am noticing that this value is much higher than what len returns.

Answer 1

To quote the documentation:

Return the size of an object in bytes. The object can be any type of object. All built-in objects will return correct results, but this does not have to hold true for third-party extensions as it is implementation specific.

Built in strings are not simple character sequences - they are full fledged objects, with garbage collection overhead, which probably explains the size discrepancy you're noticing.