From what you are saying, you are comparing a data type with a storage type. By that i mean you are trying to compare something that stores info, with the way it maintains the info in that storage space.

Hash tables are almost always fast, and extremly efficient when it comes to large amount of data. You can also combine the hash tables with the token storage type. i.e.
/hadd table Item1 abcd,efg,hijk,lmnop,qrs

$gettok($hget($table,Item1),2,32) would return efg.


-KingTomato