>>73,76 [d@home ~]$ time echo 'main(){ int i; for(i=0;i<1000000;i++) strtol("ff", 0, 16); }' | gcc -xc -
real 0m0.271s
user 0m0.063s
sys 0m0.033s
[d@home ~]$ time echo 'main(){ int i; for(i=0;i<1000000;i++) strtol("ff", 0, 16); }' | gcc -xc -
real 0m0.047s
user 0m0.023s
sys 0m0.017s
even with compilation time it's still faster