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I read in the documentation for the String class that eql? is a strict equality operator, without type conversion, and == is a equality operator which tries to convert second its argument to a String, and, the C source code for this methods confirms that: The eql? source code: static VALUE rb_str_eql(VALUE str1, VALUE str2) { if (str1 == str2) return Qtrue; if (TYPE(str2) != T_STRING) return Qfalse; return str_eql(str1, str2); } The == source code: VALUE rb_str_equal(VALUE str1, VALUE str2) { if (str1 == str2) return Qtrue; if (TYPE(str2) != T_STRING) { if (!rb_respond_to(str2, rb_intern("to_str"))) { return Qfalse; } return rb_equal(str2, str1); } return str_eql(str1, str2); } But when I tried to benchmark these methods, I was suprised that == is faster than eql? by up to 20%! My benchmark code is: require "benchmark" RUN_COUNT = 100000000 first_string = "Woooooha" second_string = "Woooooha" time = Benchmark.measure do RUN_COUNT.times do |i| first_string.eql?(second_string) end end puts time time = Benchmark.measure do RUN_COUNT.times do |i| first_string == second_string end end puts time And results: Ruby 1.9.3-p125: 26.420000 0.250000 26.670000 ( 26.820762) 21.520000 0.200000 21.720000 ( 21.843723) Ruby 1.9.2-p290: 25.930000 0.280000 26.210000 ( 26.318998) 19.800000 0.130000 19.930000 ( 19.991929) So, can anyone explain why the more simple eql? method is slower than == method in the case when I run it for two similar strings?

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