I asked the following question that was closed due to a supposed lack of research. I believe this was a mistake for the following reason:
I'm well aware of how to time the execution of a command, but timing the command on my Cygwin system - itself not very representative of most systems that bash
is running on - would have told me nothing about which method would be in theory faster to run. There are a lot of variables in the specifics of any one system that could affect benchmarks, but how the actual code works is something that can be objectively known, irrespective of whether it holds true on all systems.
The answer that I'm looking for is clearly stated: something that includes an actual understanding of the theoretical differences between the two implementations in their function, and how those theoretical differences affect the speed of the two, with benchmarks being optional. This is something that someone with knowledge of bash
's inner workings would readily have knowledge of, and I've seen many such questions across the Stack Exchange network, including on SU.
Therefore I believe that prioritising my own benchmarks would result in an overly myopic take on the question that misses the much broader, more useful question being asked.
bash
tag.