⚡ Bolt: Optimize visible text checks using .isspace()

.jules/bolt.md

@@ -63,3 +63,7 @@
 ## 2024-07-30 - Avoid chained string replace when checking character sets
 **Learning:** Using chained `.replace(a, "").replace(b, "")` to check if a string consists entirely of specific characters requires intermediate string allocations for every call. In benchmarks, using `.strip("ab")` is ~30% faster and avoids multiple allocations in the hot path.
 **Action:** When checking if a string is solely composed of specific characters, use `.strip(chars)` instead of chained `.replace()` calls to improve performance.
+
+## 2024-07-31 - Use isspace() instead of strip() for visible text checks
+**Learning:** Checking if a string contains visible text by evaluating `bool(text.strip())` forces the allocation of a new string just to test its truthiness. Using `.isspace()` avoids this memory allocation and is significantly faster in hot loops.
+**Action:** Replace `bool(text.strip())` with `not text.isspace()` when checking if a string contains visible characters to avoid unnecessary string allocations.

src/newsdom_api/equivalence.py

@@ -21,8 +21,8 @@ def _article_has_headline(article: dict[str, Any]) -> bool:
         return headline_present
 
     headline = article.get("headline")
-    # ⚡ Bolt: Early truthiness return to avoid allocating a stripped string when it is empty
-    return isinstance(headline, str) and bool(headline) and bool(headline.strip())
+    # ⚡ Bolt: Use .isspace() instead of .strip() to avoid string allocation when checking for visible text
+    return isinstance(headline, str) and bool(headline) and not headline.isspace()
 
 
 def _process_articles(metrics: dict[str, Any], articles: list[Any]) -> None: