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?

View test history (6) Run this test again Return to test menu

Result: Discarded

The test labeled "pack()" was the faster by 0.0249 seconds, (4.176% faster)

pack() 100%

sprintf() 95.824%

The pack() test took 0.5725 seconds.
The sprintf() test took 0.5975 seconds.

Nitty-Gritty

Each test case ran 20 random code order iterations consisting of 163,664 loops for a total of 3,273,280 runs.

Line execution difference (0.000008) milliseconds.
Avg difference (1.247) milliseconds per 163,664 loops.
Total difference 24.95 milliseconds for 3,273,280 loops

The iteration variablity for Code 1 was (0.2991) milliseconds and Code 2 was (1.5439) 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);

PHP Benchmarks