#! perl -slw use strict; use Benchmark qw[ cmpthese ]; our %lookup = ( A=>0, B=>1, C=>2, D=>3 ); our $input = 'ACGT' x 1000; cmpthese -1, { index => q[ our( %lookup, $input ); my $n; $n = index "ACGT", $_ for split '', $input; ], hash => q[ our( %lookup, $input ); my $n; $n = $lookup{ $_ } for split '', $input; ], }; __END__ c:\test>junk5 Rate hash index hash 107/s -- -21% index 135/s 27% --