How to convert std::string to lower case?

Question

I want to convert a std::string to lowercase. I am aware of the function tolower(), however in the past I have had issues with this function and it

Answer 1

As far as I see Boost libraries are really bad performance-wise. I have tested their unordered_map to STL and it was average 3 times slower (best case 2, worst was 10 times). Also this algorithm looks too low.

The difference is so big that I am sure whatever addition you will need to do to tolower to make it equal to boost "for your needs" will be way faster than boost.

I have done these tests on an Amazon EC2, therefore performance varied during the test but you still get the idea.

./test
Elapsed time: 12365milliseconds
Elapsed time: 1640milliseconds
./test
Elapsed time: 26978milliseconds
Elapsed time: 1646milliseconds
./test
Elapsed time: 6957milliseconds
Elapsed time: 1634milliseconds
./test
Elapsed time: 23177milliseconds
Elapsed time: 2421milliseconds
./test
Elapsed time: 17342milliseconds
Elapsed time: 14132milliseconds
./test
Elapsed time: 7355milliseconds
Elapsed time: 1645milliseconds

-O2 made it like this:

./test
Elapsed time: 3769milliseconds
Elapsed time: 565milliseconds
./test
Elapsed time: 3815milliseconds
Elapsed time: 565milliseconds
./test
Elapsed time: 3643milliseconds
Elapsed time: 566milliseconds
./test
Elapsed time: 22018milliseconds
Elapsed time: 566milliseconds
./test
Elapsed time: 3845milliseconds
Elapsed time: 569milliseconds

Source:

string str;
bench.start();
for(long long i=0;i<1000000;i++)
{
    str="DSFZKMdskfdsjfsdfJDASFNSDJFXCKVdnjsafnjsdfjdnjasnJDNASFDJDSFSDNJjdsanjfsdnfjJNFSDJFSD";
    boost::algorithm::to_lower(str);
}
bench.end();

bench.start();
for(long long i=0;i<1000000;i++)
{
    str="DSFZKMdskfdsjfsdfJDASFNSDJFXCKVdnjsafnjsdfjdnjasnJDNASFDJDSFSDNJjdsanjfsdnfjJNFSDJFSD";
    for(unsigned short loop=0;loop < str.size();loop++)
    {
        str[loop]=tolower(str[loop]);
    }
}
bench.end();

I guess I should to the tests on a dedicated machine but I will be using this EC2 so I do not really need to test it on my machine.