"Lennart Borgman" <lennart.borgman@gmail.com> writes:

>> > Yes, that is one possibility. But then perhaps I would assume that
>> > re-search-forward better might optimize that search since it can
>> > (in theory) cut off the searching at BOUND. In the case I am
>> > looking at performance is important.
>>
>> Why don't you time it?
>
> Because I thought someone here knew more about the performance differences
> (if any). I am also a bit surprised that looking-at does not have a BOUND
> parameter and hoped to get some comments on that.

Offhand it doesn't fit looking-at's interface particulary well -- while
you can come up with semantics for such a parameter, they're not
something obviously useful as is the case for searches.  Also, for
typical uses of looking-at, the performance difference isn't a factor.

Anyway, it seems a lot better to get actual data than
pontificate... premature optimization is the root of all evil,
after all... :-)