The OpenEdge Hive

When you want to verify that a character value contains characters, using the construct:
someCharacterValue > ""
is, on average in my test, 10% (for a void string) to 27% (for a ? string) faster than the second fastest construct (not to mention that it is also shorter to type; not to mention that it is also 33% to 50% faster then the slowest of the constructs presented here) - running on an Intel P4; maybe someone could confirm the same type of percentage when code is run on other processors.

Sample code:

DEFINE VARIABLE i AS INTEGER NO-UNDO.
DEFINE VARIABLE j AS INTEGER NO-UNDO.
DEFINE VARIABLE ct AS CHARACTER NO-UNDO.
DEFINE VARIABLE cResult AS CHARACTER NO-UNDO.
DEFINE VARIABLE iLoopTime AS INTEGER NO-UNDO.
DEFINE VARIABLE iETIME AS INTEGER NO-UNDO.
&SCOPED-DEFINE LoopSize 1000000

ETIME(TRUE).
DO i = 1 TO {&LoopSize}:
END.
iLoopTime = ETIME. /* loop execution time */

DO j = 1 TO 3:
  CASE j:
    WHEN 1 THEN ASSIGN 
     ct = ""
     cResult = cResult + "~nFor void: ".
    WHEN 2 THEN ASSIGN 
     ct = ?
     cResult = cResult + "~nFor ---?: ".
    WHEN 3 THEN ASSIGN 
     ct = "asilhjdgfikh sdf lsidfh kldsf"
     cResult = cResult + "~nFor char: ".
  END CASE.

  ETIME(TRUE).
  DO i = 1 TO {&LoopSize}:
    ct <> "" AND ct <> ?. /* 1 */
  END.
  iETIME = ETIME.
  
  cResult = cResult + "   #1 = " + STRING(iETIME - iLoopTime).
  
  ETIME(TRUE).
  DO i = 1 TO {&LoopSize}:
    ct > "". /* 2 */
  END.
  iETIME = ETIME.
  
  cResult = cResult + "   #2 = " + STRING(iETIME - iLoopTime).
  
  ETIME(TRUE).
  DO i = 1 TO {&LoopSize}:
    ct <> ? AND ct <> "". /* 3 */
  END.
  iETIME = ETIME.
  
  cResult = cResult + "   #3 = " + STRING(iETIME - iLoopTime).
  
  ETIME(TRUE).
  DO i = 1 TO {&LoopSize}:
    LENGTH(ct) > 0. /* 4 */
  END.
  iETIME = ETIME.
  
  cResult = cResult + "   #4 = " + STRING(iETIME - iLoopTime).
END.

MESSAGE cResult VIEW-AS ALERT-BOX.

Two runs on my machine:
For void: #1 = 594 #2 = 532 #3 = 1078 #4 = 641
For ---?: #1 = 891 #2 = 390 #3 = 594 #4 = 532
For char: #1 = 1062 #2 = 548 #3 = 1062 #4 = 641

For void: #1 = 609 #2 = 563 #3 = 1047 #4 = 657
For ---?: #1 = 875 #2 = 391 #3 = 609 #4 = 516
For char: #1 = 1094 #2 = 531 #3 = 1110 #4 = 641