Pre-python 3.2, the format used for representing `str` objects in memory depended on if you used a "narrow" (UTF-16) or "wide" (UTF-32) build of Python. Fortun

Pre-python 3.2, the format used for representing `str` objects in memory depended on if you used a "narrow" (UTF-16) or "wide" (UTF-32) build of Python. Fortunately, wide and narrow builds were abandonned in Python 3.2, with a new way of representing strings : current Python will use ASCII if there's no non-ASCII char, UCS-2 –UTF-16 without surrogate pairs — if there is no codepoint higher than U+FFFF, and UTF-32 else. See this article for a good overview of the history of strings in Python : https://tenthousandmeters.com/blog/python-behind-the-scenes-9-how-python-strings-work/ https://tenthousandmeters.com/blog/python-behind-the-scenes-...