Description:
------------
Full info here:
http://news.php.net/php.internals/64127

4.4.9 on old machine vs 5.4.9 on new machine:
date                    : 1.856 sec	date                    : 2.111 sec

after patch (~20% performance increase):
date: 1.763 sec

* new machine is 2 to 200x faster than old machine, see link above for more details


Test script:
---------------
// common date output format

// use any preferred timing methods either within php, or externally time execution of the script (eg, microtime(), etc) -- the former will be more accurate at isolating the date() function, overall
$c = 1000000;
for($i=0; $i<$c; $i++) date('F j, Y, g:i a', $now);


Expected result:
----------------
worse performance on stock builds, better when patch is applied -- still considerably slower than 4.4.9 version of date() and related, but is an improvement

Actual result:
--------------
By moving the frequently used iso fetching function into the switch statement, this prevents an otherwise unnecessary step for other more common usages of date formatting.