For the sake of this problem, assume that the string has been stripped of punctuation (including spaces), and has been converted to a single case. The most efficient way to detect whether a string is a palindrome is to create two pointers. Set one at the beginning of the string, and one at the end. Compare the values at those locations. If the values don't match, the string isn't a palindrome. Otherwise, move each pointer inward and repeat the comparison. Stop when the pointers are pointing to the same position in the string (if its length is an odd-number) or when the pointers have "crossed" (if the string's length is an even-number).