Interesting! ''.join() has the advantage on longer strings though: $ python -mtimeit "'aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa' + 'bbbbbbbbbbbbbbb' + 'ccccccccccccccc' + 'dddddddddddd

Interesting! ''.join() has the advantage on longer strings though: $ python -mtimeit "'aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa' + 'bbbbbbbbbbbbbbb' + 'ccccccccccccccc' + 'ddddddddddddddd'" 1000000 loops, best of 3: 0.224 usec per loop $ python -mtimeit "''.join(('aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa','bbbbbbbbbbbbbbb','ccccccccccccccc','ddddddddddddddd'))" 10000000 loops, best of 3: 0.201 usec per loop