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I'm not whining or and I'm not complaining (and never did). I always exposed facts. I'm not especially interested in Python, I'm interested in Unicode. Usualy when I posted examples, there are confirmed. What I see is this (std "download-abled" Python's on Windows 7 (and other Windows/platforms/machines): Py32 >>> import timeit >>> timeit.repeat("'a' * 1000 + 'ẞ'") [0.7005365263669056, 0.6810694766790423, 0.6811978680727229] >>> timeit.repeat("'a' * 1000 + 'z'") [0.7105829560031083, 0.6904999426964764, 0.6938637184431968] Py33 import timeit timeit.repeat("'a' * 1000 + 'ẞ'") [1.1484035160337613, 1.1233738895227505, 1.1215708962703874] timeit.repeat("'a' * 1000 + 'z'") [0.6640958193635527, 0.6469043692851528, 0.6458961423900007] I have systematically such a behaviour, in 99.99999% of my tests. When there is something better, it is usually because something else (3.2/3.3) has been modified. I have my idea where this is coming from. Question: When it is claimed, that this has been tested, do you mean stringbench.py as proposed many times by Terry? (Thanks for an answer). jmf -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list