#! perl -slw
use strict;
use Benchmark qw[ cmpthese ];

our $string = 'x'x5000;

cmpthese -1, {
    substr      => q[
        for ( 0..length( $string)-1 ) {
            my $c = substr $string, $_, 1;
        }
    ],
    splitArray  => q[
        my @c=split'',$string;
        for( 0 .. $#c ){
            my $c = $c[$_];
        }
    ],
    splitFor    => q[
        for( split'', $string ){
            my $c = $_;
        }
    ],
    unpack      => q[
        for( unpack 'C*', $string ) {
            my $c = chr;
        }
    ],
    reverseChop => q[
        my $s = reverse $string;
        my $c;
        $c = $_ while chop $s;
    ],
    chop        => q[
        my $s = $string;
        my $c;
        $c = $_ while chop $s;
    ],
    ramfile        => q[
        open my $ram, '<', \$string;
        my $c;
        $c = $_ while $_ = getc( $ram );
    ],
};

__END__
C:\test>873068
              Rate splitArray splitFor ramfile substr unpack reverseChop    chop
splitArray   169/s         --     -48%    -74%   -81%   -83%        -89%    -89%
splitFor     323/s        91%       --    -51%   -64%   -67%        -79%    -79%
ramfile      654/s       288%     103%      --   -27%   -34%        -57%    -58%
substr       891/s       428%     176%     36%     --    -9%        -42%    -43%
unpack       984/s       484%     205%     51%    10%     --        -36%    -37%
reverseChop 1534/s       809%     376%    135%    72%    56%          --     -1%
chop        1555/s       822%     382%    138%    74%    58%          1%      --