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 0.0129 seconds, (1.755% faster)

pack() 100%

sprintf() 98.245%

The pack() test took 0.7236 seconds.
The sprintf() test took 0.7365 seconds.

Nitty-Gritty

Each test case ran 20 random code order iterations consisting of 197,379 loops for a total of 3,947,580 runs.

Line execution difference (0.000003) milliseconds.
Avg difference (0.646) milliseconds per 197,379 loops.
Total difference 12.93 milliseconds for 3,947,580 loops

The iteration variablity for Code 1 was (1.0909) milliseconds and Code 2 was (0.8255) 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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