I was told someone's awk code ran almost as fast as C. Not sure that's close to a true statement even in simple tasks. I wrote two tests and ran them with Linux's time command. Is this a fair and valid test? I need to give my management an honest answer.

Note that the code runs but I have to hand transcribe it.

### C

Code:
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
  FILE *fp;
  fp = fopen("/dev/null", "w");
  char my_string[10] = "123rte";
  int i;
  for ( i = 0; i < 10000; i++ )
  {
    fprintf(fp, "%s\n", my_string);
  }
  fclose(fp);
  return 0;
}
### awk

Code:
#!/bin/bash

my_string="123rte"
for (( n=0; n<10000; n++)) do
  echo $my_string | awk '{ print $1 }' > /dev/null 2>&1
done