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sin_fast_blank

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Check for blank string faster than FastBlank or ActiveSupport
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 Releases
Current version
4.0.0
Total releases
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First release
1980-01-02
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2025-08-13
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 Development
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Ruby
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Average date of last 50 commits
2025-07-24
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 Dependencies
 Project Readme

SinFastBlank

License Tag Release Test Lint

Check for blank string faster than FastBlank or ActiveSupport.

Forked from FastBlank.

  • Installation
  • Usage
    • String#blank?
    • String#ascii_blank?
  • Benchmark
  • Development
    • Building for JRuby
  • 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 1.8-15.8x faster than FastBlank's String#blank_as? and about 1.4-27.5x 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 - blank?       | 130332717.9          | Fastest      |
| FastBlank - blank_as?       | 130073872.3          | Fastest      |
| FastBlank - blank?          | 120949518.0          | Fastest      |
| SinFastBlank - ascii_blank? | 102454885.3          | 1.3x slower  |
| ActiveSupport - blank?      | 93972240.6           | 1.4x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_e?          | 33763124.1           | 3.9x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_f?          | 22836580.0           | 5.7x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_g?          | 22702537.6           | 5.7x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_h?          | 22628556.0           | 5.8x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_a?          | 15465657.5           | 8.4x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_b?          | 8842849.9            | 14.7x slower |
| Scratch - blank_c?          | 8738787.3            | 14.9x slower |
| Scratch - blank_d?          | 4110844.4            | 31.7x slower |
+-----------------------------+----------------------+--------------+

+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                Benchmark Result (String Length: 8)                |
+-----------------------------+----------------------+--------------+
| Name                        | Iteration Per Second | Speed Ratio  |
+-----------------------------+----------------------+--------------+
| SinFastBlank - blank?       | 70504920.9           | Fastest      |
| SinFastBlank - ascii_blank? | 64673416.3           | Fastest      |
| FastBlank - blank?          | 29594588.1           | 2.4x slower  |
| FastBlank - blank_as?       | 27436294.1           | 2.6x slower  |
| ActiveSupport - blank?      | 9397623.1            | 7.5x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_c?          | 8303597.3            | 8.5x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_b?          | 8215201.6            | 8.6x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_g?          | 7165141.6            | 9.8x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_f?          | 7052450.1            | 10.0x slower |
| Scratch - blank_a?          | 5743412.5            | 12.3x slower |
| Scratch - blank_e?          | 5377207.7            | 13.1x slower |
| Scratch - blank_d?          | 3996394.3            | 17.6x slower |
| Scratch - blank_h?          | 3725923.0            | 18.9x slower |
+-----------------------------+----------------------+--------------+

+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
|               Benchmark Result (String Length: 43)                |
+-----------------------------+----------------------+--------------+
| Name                        | Iteration Per Second | Speed Ratio  |
+-----------------------------+----------------------+--------------+
| SinFastBlank - blank?       | 78204105.4           | Fastest      |
| SinFastBlank - ascii_blank? | 33538338.4           | 2.3x slower  |
| FastBlank - blank_as?       | 4955724.4            | 15.8x slower |
| FastBlank - blank?          | 4610702.1            | 17.0x slower |
| Scratch - blank_b?          | 3695753.3            | 21.2x slower |
| Scratch - blank_f?          | 3432594.5            | 22.8x slower |
| ActiveSupport - blank?      | 2847389.8            | 27.5x slower |
| Scratch - blank_c?          | 2743162.5            | 28.5x slower |
| Scratch - blank_g?          | 2590408.5            | 30.2x slower |
| Scratch - blank_d?          | 2397991.1            | 32.6x slower |
| Scratch - blank_h?          | 2299818.0            | 34.0x slower |
| Scratch - blank_a?          | 2207233.4            | 35.4x slower |
| Scratch - blank_e?          | 2156507.1            | 36.3x slower |
+-----------------------------+----------------------+--------------+

+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
|               Benchmark Result (String Length: 127)               |
+-----------------------------+----------------------+--------------+
| Name                        | Iteration Per Second | Speed Ratio  |
+-----------------------------+----------------------+--------------+
| SinFastBlank - blank?       | 73614227.9           | Fastest      |
| SinFastBlank - ascii_blank? | 65866197.7           | 1.1x slower  |
| FastBlank - blank?          | 42846828.1           | 1.7x slower  |
| FastBlank - blank_as?       | 41268460.6           | 1.8x slower  |
| ActiveSupport - blank?      | 9370992.8            | 7.9x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_a?          | 8387651.6            | 8.8x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_c?          | 8264076.2            | 8.9x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_e?          | 7710409.1            | 9.5x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_g?          | 7134171.5            | 10.3x slower |
| Scratch - blank_d?          | 5801926.7            | 12.7x slower |
| Scratch - blank_h?          | 5268556.4            | 14.0x slower |
| Scratch - blank_b?          | 4630144.9            | 15.9x slower |
| Scratch - blank_f?          | 4238312.9            | 17.4x slower |
+-----------------------------+----------------------+--------------+

+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
|               Benchmark Result (String Length: 238)               |
+-----------------------------+----------------------+--------------+
| Name                        | Iteration Per Second | Speed Ratio  |
+-----------------------------+----------------------+--------------+
| SinFastBlank - blank?       | 73820537.2           | Fastest      |
| SinFastBlank - ascii_blank? | 67308850.3           | Fastest      |
| FastBlank - blank?          | 42938005.9           | 1.7x slower  |
| FastBlank - blank_as?       | 41422378.7           | 1.8x slower  |
| ActiveSupport - blank?      | 8411852.3            | 8.8x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_c?          | 7536457.9            | 9.8x slower  |
| Scratch - blank_a?          | 7166373.0            | 10.3x slower |
| Scratch - blank_e?          | 6791611.4            | 10.9x slower |
| Scratch - blank_g?          | 6473386.4            | 11.4x slower |
| Scratch - blank_d?          | 5425231.6            | 13.6x slower |
| Scratch - blank_h?          | 4938394.6            | 14.9x slower |
| Scratch - blank_b?          | 3422558.9            | 21.6x slower |
| Scratch - blank_f?          | 3203359.7            | 23.0x slower |
+-----------------------------+----------------------+--------------+

The benchmark was executed in the following environment:

  • Ruby 3.4.5 (2025-07-16 revision 20cda200d3) +YJIT +PRISM [arm64-darwin24]
  • FastBlank 1.0.1
  • ActiveSupport 8.0.2

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

Development

Building for JRuby

To build the Java extension for JRuby support, follow these steps:

  1. Start a JRuby Docker container:
docker run -it --rm -v "$(pwd):/app" -w /app jruby:9.3.4.0-jdk8 /bin/bash
  1. Install necessary dependencies:
apt update
apt upgrade
apt install git
  1. Compile the Java source:
cd ext/java
javac -cp /opt/jruby/lib/jruby.jar sin_deep_merge/SinDeepMergeLibrary.java
  1. Create the JAR file:
jar cvf ../../lib/sin_deep_merge/sin_deep_merge.jar sin_deep_merge/SinDeepMergeLibrary.class
  1. Install dependencies and run linter, tests and benchmarks:
cd ../../
gem install bundler
bundle install
bundle exec rake rubocop
bundle exec rake test
bundle exec rake benchmark

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.