my %tests = (
   split    => q{ my @a = split //, $buf;             },
   regex    => q{ my @a = $buf =~ /./sg;              },
   unpack_C => q{ my @a = map chr, unpack 'C*', $buf; },
   unpack_a => q{ my @a = unpack '(a)*', $buf;        },
   rev_chop => q{ my @a = reverse map chop($buf), 1..length($buf); },
   chop => q{ my @a; $a[ $_ ] = chop $buffer for length($buffer) .. 0; },
);

##</code><code>##

            Rate rev_chop unpack_C    split    regex unpack_a     chop
rev_chop  17.6/s       --      -6%     -13%     -20%     -30%    -100%
unpack_C  18.7/s       6%       --      -7%     -15%     -25%    -100%
split     20.2/s      15%       8%       --      -8%     -20%    -100%
regex     22.0/s      25%      17%       9%       --     -13%    -100%
unpack_a  25.1/s      43%      34%      24%      14%       --    -100%
chop     68478/s  388556%  365714%  339175%  311691%  272542%       --