Test: pack v. sprintf

The documentation describes sprintf() using %c as similar to chr(). It's an arguably cleaner syntax (if only using chars) than pack() uses - is it faster?

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Result: Discarded

The test labeled "pack()" was the faster by 0.0877 seconds, (11.127% faster)

pack() 100%

sprintf() 88.873%

The pack() test took 0.7008 seconds.
The sprintf() test took 0.7885 seconds.

Nitty-Gritty

Each test case ran 20 random code order iterations consisting of 131,803 loops for a total of 2,636,060 runs.

Line execution difference (0.000033) milliseconds.
Avg difference (4.387) milliseconds per 131,803 loops.
Total difference 87.74 milliseconds for 2,636,060 loops

The iteration variablity for Code 1 was (6.1536) milliseconds and Code 2 was (8.8595) milliseconds. The lower and the closer together there values are the more accurate the results are.

Code

The first test, "pack()", was:

$GLOBALS['dummy'] = pack('C4', 65, 65, 65, 65);

The second test, "sprintf()", was:

$GLOBALS['dummy'] = sprintf('%c%c%c%c', 65, 65, 65, 65);

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