split // was optimised to not use the regex engine on 9 Aug 2007. The 5.8 build you are using probably predates that.

I got the same variability between regex and unpack_C with 5.10. They are basically equivalent in terms of performance.

In reply to Re^5: Convert string to array - performance challenge by ikegami
in thread Convert string to array - performance challenge by rtillian

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