diff --git a/CONTRIBUTORS b/CONTRIBUTORS
index 937e2a59..6ea33dcc 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTORS
+++ b/CONTRIBUTORS
@@ -2114,3 +2114,4 @@ Patrice Staudt <staudt@engsystem.net>
 
 Tobias Bratfisch <tobias@reel-multimedia.com>
  for improving numdigits(), isnumber() and strreplace()
+ for suggesting to make skipspace() an inline function
diff --git a/HISTORY b/HISTORY
index 317bfcbe..6b933e80 100644
--- a/HISTORY
+++ b/HISTORY
@@ -5276,7 +5276,7 @@ Video Disk Recorder Revision History
 - Improved performance of the SVDRP commands LSTC and CHAN when used with a
   channel name.
 
-2007-07-20: Version 1.5.6
+2007-07-21: Version 1.5.6
 
 - Fixed a buffer overflow in initializing the system character table (thanks
   to Marco Schlüßler).
@@ -5290,3 +5290,6 @@ Video Disk Recorder Revision History
 - Updated the Finnish OSD texts (thanks to Rolf Ahrenberg).
 - Improved cControl::Launch() to keep 'control' from pointing to uninitialized
   memory (thanks to Rolf Ahrenberg).
+- Made skipspace() an inline function (suggested by Tobias Bratfisch) and changed
+  it to handle the most common case of 'no leading space' very fast, and avoid
+  calling isspace(), which made the whole function a lot faster.
diff --git a/tools.c b/tools.c
index dc91d11a..0d471bb7 100644
--- a/tools.c
+++ b/tools.c
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
  * See the main source file 'vdr.c' for copyright information and
  * how to reach the author.
  *
- * $Id: tools.c 1.133 2007/07/20 14:25:46 kls Exp $
+ * $Id: tools.c 1.134 2007/07/21 13:02:45 kls Exp $
  */
 
 #include "tools.h"
@@ -167,13 +167,6 @@ char *strreplace(char *s, const char *s1, const char *s2)
   return s;
 }
 
-char *skipspace(const char *s)
-{
-  while (*s && isspace(*s))
-        s++;
-  return (char *)s;
-}
-
 char *stripspace(char *s)
 {
   if (s && *s) {
diff --git a/tools.h b/tools.h
index fc9c87bf..a0c5a528 100644
--- a/tools.h
+++ b/tools.h
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
  * See the main source file 'vdr.c' for copyright information and
  * how to reach the author.
  *
- * $Id: tools.h 1.103 2007/06/23 13:34:28 kls Exp $
+ * $Id: tools.h 1.104 2007/07/21 13:35:45 kls Exp $
  */
 
 #ifndef __TOOLS_H
@@ -173,7 +173,14 @@ char *strcpyrealloc(char *dest, const char *src);
 char *strn0cpy(char *dest, const char *src, size_t n);
 char *strreplace(char *s, char c1, char c2);
 char *strreplace(char *s, const char *s1, const char *s2); ///< re-allocates 's' and deletes the original string if necessary!
-char *skipspace(const char *s);
+inline char *skipspace(const char *s)
+{
+  if (*s > ' ') // most strings don't have any leading space, so handle this case as fast as possible
+     return (char *)s;
+  while (*s && *s <= ' ') // avoiding isspace() here, because it is much slower
+        s++;
+  return (char *)s;
+}
 char *stripspace(char *s);
 char *compactspace(char *s);
 cString strescape(const char *s, const char *chars);