Test: substr($var, 25, 1) vs. isset && {25}

Return the nth character of a string when the character does not exist.

Historical Results

Based on (2) saved test runs, The test labeled "substr()" was (on average) the faster by 0.0126 seconds, (1.527% faster)

substr() 100%

isset {5} 98.473%

The substr() test took 0.8094 seconds.
The isset {5} test took 0.822 seconds.

Nitty-Gritty

Each test case ran 20 random code order iterations consisting of 217,783 loops for a total of 4,355,650 runs.

Line execution difference (0.000003) milliseconds.
Avg difference (0.000) milliseconds per 217,783 loops.
Total difference 12.55 milliseconds for 4,355,650 loops

The iteration variablity for Code 1 was (0.0000) milliseconds and Code 2 was (0.0000) milliseconds. The lower and the closer together there values are the more accurate the results are.

Code

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

for ($j = 0; $j < 100; $j++)
	$GLOBALS['dummy2'] = substr($GLOBALS['dummy'], 25, 1);

The second test, "isset {5}", was:

for ($j = 0; $j < 100; $j++)
	$GLOBALS['dummy2'] = isset($GLOBALS['dummy']{25}) ? $GLOBALS['dummy']{25} : '';

PHP Benchmarks