SinFastBlank

Ruby extension library for up to 9x faster blank string checking than fast_blank gem.

Forked from FastBlank.

• Installation
• Usage
  • String#blank?
  • String#ascii_blank?
• Benchmark
• Changelog
• Contributing
• License
• Code of Conduct
• Sponsor

Installation

Install the gem and add to the application's Gemfile by executing:

bundle add sin_fast_blank

If bundler is not being used to manage dependencies, install the gem by executing:

gem install sin_fast_blank

Usage

String#blank?

SinFastBlank's String#blank? is compatible with ActiveSupport's String#blank?.

require 'sin_fast_blank'

''.blank? # => true
' '.blank? # => true
'　'.blank? # => true
"\t".blank? # => true
"\r".blank? # => true
"\n".blank? # => true
"\r\n".blank? # => true
"\r\n\v\f\r\s\t".blank? # => true
'abc'.blank? # => false
' abc '.blank? # => false

String#ascii_blank?

require 'sin_fast_blank'

''.ascii_blank? # => true
' '.ascii_blank? # => true
"\t".ascii_blank? # => true
"\r".ascii_blank? # => true
"\n".ascii_blank? # => true
"\r\n".ascii_blank? # => true
"\r\n\v\f\r\s\t".ascii_blank? # => true
'abc'.ascii_blank? # => false
' abc '.ascii_blank? # => false

Benchmark

SinFastBlank's String#blank? is about 1.3-9.3x faster than FastBlank's String#blank_as? and about 1.3-10.6x faster than ActiveSupport's String#blank?.

Additionally, this gem allocates no strings during the check, making it less of a burden on the GC.

$ bundle exec rake benchmark

+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                Benchmark Result (String Length: 0)                |
+-----------------------------+----------------------+--------------+
| Name                        | Iteration Per Second | Speed Ratio  |
+-----------------------------+----------------------+--------------+
| SinFastBlank - ascii_blank? | 216909803.3          | -            |
| SinFastBlank - blank?       | 202197526.4          | -            |
| FastBlank - blank?          | 178264540.7          | 1.2x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_e?          | 172671205.3          | 1.3x slower  |
| ActiveSupport - blank?      | 172651770.0          | 1.3x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_f?          | 172629459.0          | 1.3x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_h?          | 172614624.6          | 1.3x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_g?          | 172611724.9          | 1.3x slower  |
| FastBlank - blank_as?       | 169349113.3          | 1.3x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_a?          | 24740328.0           | 8.8x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_c?          | 12168769.6           | 17.8x slower |
| Scratch - blank_b?          | 11989073.4           | 18.1x slower |
| Scratch - blank_d?          | 5196690.4            | 41.7x slower |
+-----------------------------+----------------------+--------------+

+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                Benchmark Result (String Length: 8)                |
+-----------------------------+----------------------+--------------+
| Name                        | Iteration Per Second | Speed Ratio  |
+-----------------------------+----------------------+--------------+
| SinFastBlank - ascii_blank? | 98997203.5           | -            |
| SinFastBlank - blank?       | 96805819.9           | -            |
| FastBlank - blank?          | 32357130.6           | 3.1x slower  |
| FastBlank - blank_as?       | 29183259.2           | 3.4x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_c?          | 16111091.0           | 6.1x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_g?          | 15738316.1           | 6.3x slower  |
| ActiveSupport - blank?      | 15609713.7           | 6.3x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_f?          | 10848014.0           | 9.1x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_b?          | 10806036.7           | 9.2x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_a?          | 6284998.3            | 15.8x slower |
| Scratch - blank_e?          | 6232969.2            | 15.9x slower |
| Scratch - blank_d?          | 5827793.4            | 17.0x slower |
| Scratch - blank_h?          | 5811053.8            | 17.0x slower |
+-----------------------------+----------------------+--------------+

+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
|               Benchmark Result (String Length: 43)                |
+-----------------------------+----------------------+--------------+
| Name                        | Iteration Per Second | Speed Ratio  |
+-----------------------------+----------------------+--------------+
| SinFastBlank - blank?       | 46414894.4           | -            |
| SinFastBlank - ascii_blank? | 40814946.0           | 1.1x slower  |
| FastBlank - blank_as?       | 4995669.3            | 9.3x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_b?          | 4832655.3            | 9.6x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_f?          | 4828479.7            | 9.6x slower  |
| FastBlank - blank?          | 4652567.6            | 10.0x slower |
| Scratch - blank_c?          | 4436042.8            | 10.5x slower |
| Scratch - blank_g?          | 4408696.6            | 10.5x slower |
| ActiveSupport - blank?      | 4381175.9            | 10.6x slower |
| Scratch - blank_d?          | 3609301.3            | 12.9x slower |
| Scratch - blank_h?          | 3593827.7            | 12.9x slower |
| Scratch - blank_a?          | 2266500.9            | 20.5x slower |
| Scratch - blank_e?          | 2260682.2            | 20.5x slower |
+-----------------------------+----------------------+--------------+

+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
|               Benchmark Result (String Length: 127)               |
+-----------------------------+----------------------+--------------+
| Name                        | Iteration Per Second | Speed Ratio  |
+-----------------------------+----------------------+--------------+
| SinFastBlank - ascii_blank? | 120972640.9          | -            |
| SinFastBlank - blank?       | 112910414.3          | -            |
| FastBlank - blank?          | 49084147.2           | 2.5x slower  |
| FastBlank - blank_as?       | 46992403.2           | 2.6x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_c?          | 13700400.1           | 8.8x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_g?          | 13498822.8           | 9.0x slower  |
| ActiveSupport - blank?      | 13339587.2           | 9.1x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_a?          | 10576491.4           | 11.4x slower |
| Scratch - blank_e?          | 10417486.2           | 11.6x slower |
| Scratch - blank_d?          | 8033199.3            | 15.1x slower |
| Scratch - blank_h?          | 8032807.5            | 15.1x slower |
| Scratch - blank_b?          | 6015540.2            | 20.1x slower |
| Scratch - blank_f?          | 6004912.6            | 20.1x slower |
+-----------------------------+----------------------+--------------+

+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
|               Benchmark Result (String Length: 238)               |
+-----------------------------+----------------------+--------------+
| Name                        | Iteration Per Second | Speed Ratio  |
+-----------------------------+----------------------+--------------+
| SinFastBlank - ascii_blank? | 120981124.5          | -            |
| SinFastBlank - blank?       | 112794703.3          | -            |
| FastBlank - blank?          | 48885194.0           | 2.5x slower  |
| FastBlank - blank_as?       | 46855937.6           | 2.6x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_c?          | 12194686.1           | 9.9x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_g?          | 11950420.6           | 10.1x slower |
| ActiveSupport - blank?      | 11848106.0           | 10.2x slower |
| Scratch - blank_a?          | 9188737.2            | 13.2x slower |
| Scratch - blank_e?          | 9099657.5            | 13.3x slower |
| Scratch - blank_d?          | 7442981.5            | 16.3x slower |
| Scratch - blank_h?          | 7422610.2            | 16.3x slower |
| Scratch - blank_b?          | 4197486.8            | 28.8x slower |
| Scratch - blank_f?          | 4176219.6            | 29.0x slower |
+-----------------------------+----------------------+--------------+

The benchmark was executed in the following environment:

ruby 3.4.2 (2025-02-15 revision d2930f8e7a) +YJIT +PRISM [arm64-darwin24]

Performance depends not only on the string length but also on its content.

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/cadenza-tech/sin_fast_blank. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the code of conduct.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.

Code of Conduct

Everyone interacting in the SinFastBlank project's codebases, issue trackers, chat rooms and mailing lists is expected to follow the code of conduct.

Sponsor

You can sponsor this project on Patreon.