Use str.translate to improve performance of normalize

[hugovk]

This is the same as python/cpython#143660.

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We can apply @henryiii's improvement to packaging in pypa/packaging#1030 (see also https://iscinumpy.dev/post/packaging-faster/) to improve the performance of normalize and make it ~3.7 times faster.

Benchmark

Run Prepared.normalize(n) on every name in PyPI:

# benchmark_names.py
import sqlite3
import timeit
from importlib_metadata import Prepared

# Get data with:
# curl -L https://github.com/pypi-data/pypi-json-data/releases/download/latest/pypi-data.sqlite.gz | gzip -d > pypi-data.sqlite
# Or ues pre-cached files from:
# https://gist.github.com/hugovk/efdbee0620cc64df7b405b52cf0b6e42

CACHE_FILE = "/tmp/bench/names.txt"
DB_FILE = "/tmp/bench/pypi-data.sqlite"

try:
    with open(CACHE_FILE) as f:
        TEST_ALL_NAMES = [line.rstrip("\n") for line in f]
except FileNotFoundError:
    TEST_ALL_NAMES = []
    with sqlite3.connect(DB_FILE) as conn:
        with open(CACHE_FILE, "w") as cache:
            for (name,) in conn.execute("SELECT name FROM projects"):
                if name:
                    TEST_ALL_NAMES.append(name)
                    cache.write(name + "\n")


def bench():
    for n in TEST_ALL_NAMES:
        Prepared.normalize(n)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    print(f"Loaded {len(TEST_ALL_NAMES):,} names")
    t = timeit.timeit("bench()", globals=globals(), number=1)
    print(f"Time: {t:.4f} seconds")

Benchmark data can be found at https://gist.github.com/hugovk/efdbee0620cc64df7b405b52cf0b6e42

Before

❯ python3.14 --version
Python 3.14.2

❯ python3.14 benchmark_names.py
Loaded 8,344,947 names
Time: 4.8933 seconds

After

❯ python3.14 benchmark_names.py
Loaded 8,344,947 names
Time: 1.3266 seconds

3.7 times faster.