Select Code to Download

  if( $vartocheck eq lc($firstchar) ) {
    ++$foo;
  }

#! /usr/bin/perl -w

...
Benchmark: timing 10000000 iterations of eq ==, re ==...
     eq ==:  8 wallclock secs ( 6.98 usr +  0.04 sys =  7.02 CPU) @ 14
+24501.42/s (n=10000000)
     re ==: 17 wallclock secs (16.76 usr + -0.01 sys = 16.75 CPU) @ 59
+7014.93/s (n=10000000)

timethese $iters, {
        'eq !=' => sub { return $vartocheck eq lc($firstchar) },
...
Benchmark: timing 10000000 iterations of eq ==, re ==...
     eq ==:  8 wallclock secs ( 6.60 usr +  0.00 sys =  6.60 CPU) @ 15
+15151.52/s (n=10000000)
     re ==: 27 wallclock secs (27.77 usr +  0.00 sys = 27.77 CPU) @ 36
+0100.83/s (n=10000000)