Benchmark hash access in Ruby: symbol versus string

benchmark_hash_access.rb

require 'benchmark/ips'

string_hash = { 'aaa' => 1, 'bbb' => 2, 'ccc' => 3 }
symbol_hash = { aaa: 1, bbb: 2, ccc: 3 }

Benchmark.ips do |x|
  x.report('string') { string_hash['bbb'] }
  x.report('symbol') { symbol_hash[:bbb] }

  x.compare!
end

---

          symbol    101287 i/100ms
          string     80688 i/100ms

---

          symbol  6180027.1 (±6.9%) i/s -   30791248 in   5.013438s
          string  3341525.2 (±5.6%) i/s -   16702416 in   5.018036s

---

          symbol:  6180027.1 i/s
          string:  3341525.2 i/s - 1.85x slower