No, you can't have references of two different types that have the same address, so there would be no point for the code to compare the type of references.

I ran your code and the "strings" case was always the fastest. The other cases except for "take a reference" were within 20% of this speed. Some runs had "quick_refs" faster than "numbers", some vice versa.

Each of these facts reinforce my opinion that this is yet another example a premature nano-optimization. q-:

Even the "take a reference" case was only two-times as slow. Having some comparisons be two-times as slow is likely to make my real-life script, um.... 0.1% slower. I don't care. I've already wasted more time than that would ever save me adjusting my .sig. (:

Update:

I wind up with numbers fastest, hands down
I don't see how you can call 15% in a benchmark "hands down". In a benchmark, I call 20% "indeterminate". And, yes, I know you didn't start this thread. :)

        - tye (yeah, this part)

In reply to (tye)Re: speed of comparisons of things by tye
in thread speed of comparisons of things by John M. Dlugosz

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