Question

I have to compare two strings for case insensitive equality which one is faster strcasecmp() or equal to operator

$str1='Hello';
$str2='hello';

//first approach 
if($str1 != strotolower($str2))
    //do some stuff here

//second approach 
if(strcasecmp($str1,$str2) !=0)
    //do some stuff here)

which approach is better/faster?

Answer 1

Both approaches are o(n) in speed however usign strtolower allocates a new string to hold the result which in turn increases memory pressure and reduces performance