Way To Parse A Math Operator Off Of A String Of Numbers?

Given a string as a form of input (parsed from an input file) which represents a number and a mathematical operator (<, >, <=, >=, !, !=, and a few others), what is a really fastefficient way to chop off that operator, compare it to a list of valid operators, and then set an "operator" variable to a state (i.e., Enum) representing the identified operator, then return just the number (as a string)?I'm open to various ideas and implementations.I've tried several (about 6-7) myself, and find I'm not really satisfied with the speedThe fastest so far is a For Each loop that walks my list of "valid operators", and compares that operator's string representation against the chopped off bit from the numeric string. I determine the amount to chop off by the length of each valid operator in the valid list.

Here's a code example of the fastest implementation. Assume input like <378 and a valid ops list of <, >, !, or >=79 and a valid ops list of <=, >=:
Friend Function FindMatchingOp(ByVal Haystack As String,

[code].....