Optimize String Handling in Visual Basic

[Ken Puls]

Was chatting with Jake on YIM here, and I ran up a longer test than he did, and came up with some different results. Ain't as perty and you have to add your own average formula right now, but:

Sub b()
    Dim MyTimer     As Double
    Dim i           As Long
    Dim j           As Long
    Application.ScreenUpdating = False
    Range("C1").Value = "vbnullstring"
    Range("D1").Value = "2 quotes"
    For j = 1 To 50
        Range("A:A").ClearContents
        MyTimer = Timer
        For i = 1 To 10000
            If Range("A" & i).Value = vbNullString Then
                Range("A" & i).Value = 1
            End If
        Next i
        Range("C65536").End(xlUp).Offset(1, 0).Value = Timer - MyTimer
    Next j
    For j = 1 To 50
        Range("A:A").ClearContents
        MyTimer = Timer
        For i = 1 To 10000
            If Range("A" & i).Value = "" Then
                Range("A" & i).Value = 1
            End If
        Next i
        Range("D65536").End(xlUp).Offset(1, 0).Value = Timer - MyTimer
    Next j
End Sub

For me, after 50 loops, vbnullstring = .8225, "" = 1.51838

The weird part is that while vbnullstring starts and stays fast, "" seems to slow down after a few iterations.