class_docstr: Extension array for string data.
  
  .. warning::
  
     StringArray is considered experimental. The implementation and
     parts of the API may change without warning.
  
  Parameters
  ----------
  values : array-like
      The array of data.
  
      .. warning::
  
         Currently, this expects an object-dtype ndarray
         where the elements are Python strings
         or nan-likes (``None``, ``np.nan``, ``NA``).
         This may change without warning in the future. Use
         :meth:`pandas.array` with ``dtype="string"`` for a stable way of
         creating a `StringArray` from any sequence.
  
      .. versionchanged:: 1.5.0
  
         StringArray now accepts array-likes containing
         nan-likes(``None``, ``np.nan``) for the ``values`` parameter
         in addition to strings and :attr:`pandas.NA`
  
  copy : bool, default False
      Whether to copy the array of data.
  
  Attributes
  ----------
  None
  
  Methods
  -------
  None
  
  See Also
  --------
  :func:`pandas.array`
      The recommended function for creating a StringArray.
  Series.str
      The string methods are available on Series backed by
      a StringArray.
  
  Notes
  -----
  StringArray returns a BooleanArray for comparison methods.
  
  Examples
  --------
  >>> pd.array(['This is', 'some text', None, 'data.'], dtype="string")
  <StringArray>
  ['This is', 'some text', <NA>, 'data.']
  Length: 4, dtype: string
  
  Unlike arrays instantiated with ``dtype="object"``, ``StringArray``
  will convert the values to strings.
  
  >>> pd.array(['1', 1], dtype="object")
  <PandasArray>
  ['1', 1]
  Length: 2, dtype: object
  >>> pd.array(['1', 1], dtype="string")
  <StringArray>
  ['1', '1']
  Length: 2, dtype: string
  
  However, instantiating StringArrays directly with non-strings will raise an error.
  
  For comparison methods, `StringArray` returns a :class:`pandas.BooleanArray`:
  
  >>> pd.array(["a", None, "c"], dtype="string") == "a"
  <BooleanArray>
  [True, <NA>, False]
  Length: 3, dtype: boolean
code: def _putmask(self, mask: npt.NDArray[np.bool_], value) -> None:
      # the super() method NDArrayBackedExtensionArray._putmask uses
      # np.putmask which doesn't properly handle None/pd.NA, so using the
      # base class implementation that uses __setitem__
      ExtensionArray._putmask(self, mask, value)
  
imports: from __future__ import annotations
  from typing import TYPE_CHECKING, Literal
  import numpy
  from pandas._config import get_option
  from pandas._libs import lib, missing
  from pandas._libs.arrays import NDArrayBacked
  from pandas._typing import AxisInt, Dtype, Scalar, npt, type_t
  from pandas.compat import pa_version_under7p0
  from pandas.compat.numpy import function
  from pandas.util._decorators import doc
  from pandas.core.dtypes.base import ExtensionDtype, StorageExtensionDtype, register_extension_dtype
  from pandas.core.dtypes.common import is_array_like, is_bool_dtype, is_dtype_equal, is_integer_dtype, is_object_dtype, is_string_dtype, pandas_dtype
  from pandas.core import ops
  from pandas.core.array_algos import masked_reductions
  from pandas.core.arrays import ExtensionArray, FloatingArray, IntegerArray
  from pandas.core.arrays.floating import FloatingDtype
  from pandas.core.arrays.integer import IntegerDtype
  from pandas.core.arrays.numpy_ import PandasArray
  from pandas.core.construction import extract_array
  from pandas.core.indexers import check_array_indexer
  from pandas.core.missing import isna
label_desc: Use image node_id 9 for calling the StringArray obj's underlying member method code with example usage: obj._putmask(mask, value) without return types