From: Rick DeNatale <rick.denatale@...>
Date: 2006-10-27T22:40:22+09:00
Subject: Re: String#== vs. Symbol#== speed (was Re: Symbol < String in Ruby > 1.8)

On 10/27/06, Yukihiro Matsumoto <matz@ruby-lang.org> wrote:
> Try the following program to see the
> comparison performance difference between Strings and Symbols.
>
> require 'benchmark'
> require 'pp'
>
> str0 = "a" * 2000
> str1 = str0.dup
> str1[-1] = "b"
    sym0 = str0.to_sym
    sym1 = str1.to_sym

>
> $N = 1000000
 ...


And for the kids who didn't try this at home:

rick@frodo:/public/rubyscripts$ ruby matzsymbolbm.rb
                          user     system      total        real
noop                  0.770000   0.000000   0.770000 (  0.834606)
String#==            24.860000   0.560000  25.420000 ( 33.240050)
Symbol#==             2.660000   0.380000   3.040000 (  3.363099)

So under these, more realistic, conditions, Symbol comparison is
nearly a 10x improvement.

-- 
Rick DeNatale

My blog on Ruby
http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/