I meant the latter, and your solution works well (see my 2nd reply to dragonchild above for some clarifications).
It also feels "right". The problem is when some char X appears in word2 and then twice in word1... Using a hash is a clever solution to this problem. I've been trying to run your algorithm on some examples, and in my head, and didn't break it yet.
It also works about 50% faster than my original version.

In reply to Re: Re: Optimizing a string processing sub by spurperl
in thread Optimizing a string processing sub by spurperl

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