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> try explaining why that isn’t technically possible in Python (at least during an interview) without using a third-party library.

You're more likely to impress the interviewer by asking questions like "should I assume the input is only ASCII characters or the complete possible UTF-8 character set?"

A job interview is there to prove you can do the job, not prove your knowledge and intellect. It's valuable to know the intricacies of Python and strings for sure, but it's mostly irrellevant for a job interview or the job itself (unless the job involves heavy UTF-8 shenanigans, but those are very rare)



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