arraymodule's repr used "string += ',' + el" for each 
element in the array.  Lists and dicts did a string.join to 
build the repr.

Attached patch builds a tuple of array elements and 
then joins them. 

This fixes the time issue, but I don't know enough about 
how you guys manage memory in each case to tell what 
impact that'll have on really, really big arrays (although I 
imagine it takes more memory).

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As I learn more about the sizeof PyObjects, I don't really like 
my last patch.  It creates too many intermediate PyObjects 
at at the same time.  This patch uses two passes to build the 
repr, reducing the number of temporary PyObjects at any 
given time to 4 or five, instead of len(array) + 5.

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I substantially re-worked and simplifed the patch and have 
applied it as:  arraymodule 2.87

Thanks for addressing the bug report.  Otherwise, this 
might not have gotten done for Py2.3.

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Did you look at the second patch I posted?

My concern is that the intermediate list temporarily requires 
an extra 'sizeof(PyObject) x len(array)', instead of 'sizeof
(int/char/whatever) x len(array)' to do a repr now.  This is a 
pretty big multiple, right?

Current patch is fine with me if it's fine with you.  Just wanted 
to bring it up.

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Yes.  I worked through your second patch and fixed a 
couple of minor errors (old_sz was declared or set).
Then, I tested and timed it.

The code had enough complexity that it took over an hour 
to prove that it worked and had no other hidden bugs.  
That presents a bit of a maitainability issue.

My abbreviated approach solved the quadratic time 
problem but does consume a memory multiple beyond 
your version.  

Ordinarily, that isn't an issue were worry about, but I 
presume that the reason someone is using the array 
module is that they have space constraints.  This string 
representation itself is going to be much larger than the 
array object (a four byte long, takes ten digits plus a space 
and a comma).  The question is whether there is a use 
case for repr() instead of tofile() or tostring() in a situation 
where there is just enough memory for the array object 
and it's string representation but not enough for an 
intermediate list object.

If you think it is critical, we can apply the fixed-up version 
of your patch.  But think carefully about whether it is 
worth the code complexity, maintainability challenges, 
increased coupling, and the duplication of list.repr code.