Why is splitting a string slower in C++ than Python?

Question

I\'m trying to convert some code from Python to C++ in an effort to gain a little bit of speed and sharpen my rusty C++ skills. Yesterday I was shocked when a naive impleme

Answer 1

void split5(vector &tokens, const string &str, char delim=' ') {

    enum { do_token, do_delim } state = do_delim;
    int idx = 0, tok_start = 0;
    for (string::const_iterator it = str.begin() ; ; ++it, ++idx) {
        switch (state) {
            case do_token:
                if (it == str.end()) {
                    tokens.push_back (str.substr(tok_start, idx-tok_start));
                    return;
                }
                else if (*it == delim) {
                    state = do_delim;
                    tokens.push_back (str.substr(tok_start, idx-tok_start));
                }
                break;

            case do_delim:
                if (it == str.end()) {
                    return;
                }
                if (*it != delim) {
                    state = do_token;
                    tok_start = idx;
                }
                break;
        }
    }
}