Which is faster ?

[Mitsukai]

using repalce like that is VERY slow, your arguments are not right.
since evry time it will loop trough the whole string while it has found its match already (count = -1)
maybe thats why bruce got confused

try this instead(out of hand) i cant think of anything faster

dim iX as long
dim iY as long
dim iZ as long
 
iz = len("replaced")
ix = instr(1, strLargeString, "{", vbtextcompare)
do while ix > 0
  iy = iy +1
  strLargeString = Replace(strLargeString, "{" & iy & "}", "replaced", ix, 1, vbtextcompare)
  ix = instr(ix + iz, strLargeString, "{", vbtextcompare)
loop