post awk benchmarks here:
see http://awk.freeshell.org/awk.exe for awks used here.
C:\#> tt %mawk% -v n=5e4 -v s=x BEGIN{n+=0;for(i=1;i!=2048;i*=2)s=(s)(s);print( ARGV[0],n,i,length(s));while(n--)m=split(s,A,N);print(m,length(N))} mawk 17.066 seconds gawk 4.0.1 3:15.422 min 11.45 times slower
C:\#> tt %gawk% -v n=4e3 -v s=x BEGIN{n+=0;for(i=1;i!=2048;i*=2)s=(s)(s);print( ARGV[0],n,i,length(s));while(n--)m=split(s,A,N);print(m,length(N))} mawk 1.482 gawk 15.432 (10.4) awk95 14.086 (9.5) awk64 10.288 (6.9)
2012-08-26 05:21:51 g0ph3r