When is StringIO used, as opposed to joining a list of strings?

Question

Using StringIO as string buffer is slower than using list as buffer.

When is StringIO used?

from io import StringIO


def meth1(string):
    a = []
             


        

Answer 1

Another approach based on Lennart Regebro approach. This is faster than list method (meth1)

def meth4(string):
    a = StringIO(string * 100)
    contents = a.getvalue()
    a.close()
    return contents

if __name__ == '__main__':
    from timeit import Timer
    string = "This is test string"
    print(Timer("meth1(string)", "from __main__ import meth1, string").timeit())
    print(Timer("meth2(string)", "from __main__ import meth2, string").timeit())
    print(Timer("meth3(string)", "from __main__ import meth3, string").timeit())
    print(Timer("meth4(string)", "from __main__ import meth4, string").timeit())

Results (sec.):

meth1 = 7.731315963647944

meth2 = 9.609279402186985

meth3 = 0.26534052061106195

meth4 = 2.915035489152274