Ruby: fastest way of converting string into array of characters http://zed.0xff.me/2013/01/11/ruby-fastest-way-of-converting-string-into-array-of-characters

bench-split.rb

#!/usr/bin/env ruby

N = 100000
s = "foobarbaz"

@results = []
SRC = File.readlines(__FILE__)
print "[.]"

def bench title = nil
  GC.start

  t0 = Time.now
  N.times{ yield }
  dt = Time.now-t0

  fname,line = proc.source_location
  code = SRC[line-1].sub(/bench\s*\{/,'').sub(/\}\s*$/,'').strip

  print " #{dt}"
  @results << [dt, code]
end

#################

bench{ s.split('') }
bench{ s.split(//) }
bench{ s.scan(/./) }
bench{ s.chars.to_a }
bench{ Array(s.chars) }
bench{ s.bytes.to_a }
bench{ s.bytes.map(&:chr) }
bench{ a=[]; s.size.times{ |i| a<<s[i] }}
bench{ a=[]; s.chars.each{ |c| a<<c }}

#################

print "\n\n"
@results.sort_by(&:first).each do |r,code|
  if ARGV.join['html']
    printf "<tr><td> %.3f <td> <code>%s</code>\n", r, code
  else
    printf "[=] %.3f: %s\n", r, code
  end
end