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$hash =~ s/[^a-zA-Z0-9]//g;
$ perl -MBenchmark=cmpthese -le 'cmpthese( 500_000, { s => sub { $_ = +q{123#$%abc^&*DEF}; s/[^a-zA-Z0-9]//g }, y => sub { $_ = q{123#$%abc^ +&*DEF}; y/a-zA-Z0-9//cd; } } )' Rate s y s 174825/s -- -80% y 862069/s 393% --