I have to compare several million n-char strings. I have to make sure they're m-different (we call it different enough). I wrote this... but it's abysmally slow, _please_ help me. 
sub diff {
    my ( $str1, $str2 )  = @_;
    my $val;
    ($str1, $str2) = ($str2, $str1) if length($str1) > length($str2);
    $val = length($str2) - length($str1);
    return 1 if ( $val > $min_diff );
    my @str1 = split //, $str1;
    my @str2 = split //, $str2;
    for my $i ( 0..$#str1 ) {
        if ( $str1[$i] ne $str2[$i] ) {
            $val++;
        }
        return 1 if ( $val > $min_diff );
    }
    return 0;
}

In reply to diff (different enough) by jettero

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