If you want to match the exact date, then the fastest way is with a single string comparison. If you are sorting dates or looking for a close match (maybe binary search or whatever), a better format is: 2010-04-30. If you maintain 2 digits (with leading zeroes when necessary for month and day), this date format can be sorted as a single alpha string without having to break it into its component year-month-day numeric parts. The alpha sort will produce the correct less than, greater than or equal to result in a single cmp operation.