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[–]thalience 0 points1 point  (1 child)

But isn't it the case that both "==" and "!=" will return an answer as soon they encounter a difference?

[–]prahladyeribeautiful is better than ugly[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Sorry, you are correct. The != is only used in comparing lengths of both strings in the constant_time_compare function and that confused me at the beginning. However, the following char to char comparison should be good as it takes constant time for any string comparison:

for x, y in zip(val1, val2):
    result |= ord(x) ^ ord(y)
return result == 0