Comments on: Speed Comparison of strlen() VS empty() in PHP Shows empty() is Faster http://randomdrake.com/2009/10/08/speed-comparison-of-strlen-vs-empty-in-php-shows-empty-is-faster/ David Drake Covers Programming, Technology and Turbulence in Life Sat, 04 Feb 2012 20:52:22 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: electric egg cooker http://randomdrake.com/2009/10/08/speed-comparison-of-strlen-vs-empty-in-php-shows-empty-is-faster/comment-page-1/#comment-14628 electric egg cooker Mon, 19 Oct 2009 06:26:27 +0000 http://www.ilovebonnie.net/?p=350#comment-14628 Every time i come here I am not disappointed, nice post! Greetings from Tim. :) Every time i come here I am not disappointed, nice post!

Greetings from Tim. :)

]]> By: Avatar http://randomdrake.com/2009/10/08/speed-comparison-of-strlen-vs-empty-in-php-shows-empty-is-faster/comment-page-1/#comment-14298 Avatar Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:24:15 +0000 http://www.ilovebonnie.net/?p=350#comment-14298 I don't believe it is generally cost-effective to streamline code by searching for constructs that give minor performance gains. Especially prickly to me are changes that make unclear your intentions to the next programmer, not that this post is one of those cases. It is worth noting that your test script executes in less than 0.25s on my crappy environment. If I were looking at this are part of a real program, I'd be questioning if I had to loop 100 times way before I questioned empty() vs isset(). But, rather than pontificating, I'll get back to the the subject at hand. My preference has always been to use the logical operator ! instead of strlen(), empty(), isset(), or other. Only in the cases where I expect an actual false value, of any type, will I use something else. It stacks up okay in your speed test: Checking "if (!strlen($string))" VS "if ( !$string)" unset($string); Average speed gain using empty() instead of strlen(): 54.34% Number of times where strlen() was actually faster: 4 $string === false; Average speed gain using empty() instead of strlen(): 67.63% $string = ''; Average speed gain using empty() instead of strlen(): 56.1% I don’t believe it is generally cost-effective to streamline code by searching for constructs that give minor performance gains. Especially prickly to me are changes that make unclear your intentions to the next programmer, not that this post is one of those cases. It is worth noting that your test script executes in less than 0.25s on my crappy environment. If I were looking at this are part of a real program, I’d be questioning if I had to loop 100 times way before I questioned empty() vs isset().

But, rather than pontificating, I’ll get back to the the subject at hand. My preference has always been to use the logical operator ! instead of strlen(), empty(), isset(), or other. Only in the cases where I expect an actual false value, of any type, will I use something else. It stacks up okay in your speed test:

Checking “if (!strlen($string))” VS “if ( !$string)”

unset($string);
Average speed gain using empty() instead of strlen(): 54.34%
Number of times where strlen() was actually faster: 4

$string === false;
Average speed gain using empty() instead of strlen(): 67.63%

$string = ”;
Average speed gain using empty() instead of strlen(): 56.1%

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