40 characters really isn't very long at all. Especially considering that comparing strings means you generally don't have to check the whole string:

"b1234872938741279834712987398127398712983798123" eq "b2137298379812739812739871239871289379812739817" can be tested to be false after comparing only 2 characters, for example.

In any case, I may be able to help you optimize things, but since I suspect the performance issue is somewhere else in your code you'll have to convince me that your analysis of the problem is correct. Showing that the slowness is in any way significant will help too - It's pointless to spend half an hour speeding up a program that won't take more than a minute of CPU time in its entire useful life :)

"What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?"

In reply to Re^3: notequal very slow by Joost
in thread notequal very slow by Anonymous Monk

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