list allows you to store an array of any objects. This is quite helpful but may be inefficient. The array module can be used to represent arrays of base values compactly. The supported values include various C types including char, int, long, double and so on. The actual representation is determined by the C implementation. In : a = array.array('B') In : a.append(240) In : a.append(159) In : a.append(144) In : a.append(180) In : a.tobytes().decode('utf8') Out: '🐴'