I'm trying to use Algorithm::Diff to markup the differances between two plain text sequences (one old, one new) by striking through the deleted bits and highlighting the new bits.

Here is the code:

[snip]
%        my @old_body = split(/\b/, $old_body);
%        my @new_body = split(/\b/, $new_body);
%        my $diff = Algorithm::Diff->new(\@old_body, \@new_body);
%        while ($diff->Next()) {
%            if ($diff->Diff()) {
                <span class="old_text">
%                foreach ($diff->Items(1)) {
                    <% display_pre($_) %>
%                }
                </span>
                <span class="new_text">
%                foreach ($diff->Items(2)) {
                    <% display_pre($_) %>
%                }
                </span>
%            } else {
%                foreach ($diff->Same()) {
                    <% display_pre($_) %>
%                }
%            }
%        }
[snip]
[download]

It seems to work really quickly sometimes and really slowly other times, which is odd.

I Devel::Dprofed it and got the following:

%Time ExclSec CumulS #Calls sec/call Csec/c  Name
 47.5   46.88 46.888 123881   0.0000 0.0000  Algorithm::Diff::_replace
+NextLarge
                                             rWith
 17.3   17.05 64.094      1   17.056 64.093  Algorithm::Diff::_longest
+CommonSub
                                          5  sequence
 0.31   0.304  0.304  16299   0.0000 0.0000  HTML::Mason::Request::pri
+nt
 0.16   0.153 64.717      1   0.1528 64.716  HTML::Mason::Request::cal
+l_next
 0.11   0.106  0.154   5418   0.0000 0.0000  HTML::Mason::Commands::BE
+GIN
 0.09   0.086  0.101      1   0.0855 0.1010  Algorithm::Diff::_withPos
+itionsOfI
                                             nInterval
 0.07   0.070  0.070      3   0.0233 0.0233  HTML::Mason::Interp::appl
+y_escapes
 0.06   0.063  0.063   8911   0.0000 0.0000  Algorithm::Diff::__ANON__
 0.05   0.050  0.060      7   0.0072 0.0086  HTML::Mason::Request::com
+p
 0.04   0.038  0.038   5394   0.0000 0.0000  HTML::Entities::encode_en
+tities
 0.03   0.030 64.947      1   0.0301 64.947  HTML::Mason::ApacheHandle
+r::handle
                                          1  r
 0.03   0.030 64.124      1   0.0300 64.123  Algorithm::Diff::LCSidx
 0.02   0.020  0.020      1   0.0200 0.0200  DBI::connect
 0.01   0.010  0.010      9   0.0011 0.0011  vars::import
 0.01   0.010  0.010      1   0.0100 0.0100  Apache::Session::DESTROY
[download]

Any ideas as to what is causing the lag?

-Andrew.