more quickly than you can read the file and do nothing

That does not have to be more quickly, just comparable time. 20%-30% is already significant.

Also, concept that whole application run time (from start to finish) is significant is a bit wrong.

Often startup time (when actually file is read) is significant, and after startup application is actually doing something useful (and can be blocked by disk/network IO or waiting for user action) till system reboot

Do you want me paste code where split() taking more than 20% of time when I just read file to memory and skip some/most of records ?

Do you want me paste code where split() taking more {blah}

I want you to post code -- directly comparable to the OPs -- where doing something takes longer than doing nothing.

But, if you really want to play, show me code that filters a 2 million line x 11 TAB separated fields, file on the value of a field whose number and filter value I supply on the command line, more quickly than:

#! perl -slw
use strict;
use Time::HiRes qw[ time ];

our $FNO //= 6;
our $V   //= 500;

my $start = time;
my @filtered;

while( <> ) {
    my @fields = split( "\t", $_ );
    $fields[ $FNO ] == $V and push @filtered,$_;
}
printf "Took %f seconds\n", time() - $start;
printf "Kept %u records\n", scalar @filtered;

__END__
C:\test>1036737 -FNO=6 -V=500 < numbers.tsv
Took 19.072147 seconds
Kept 2005 records

C:\test>1036737 -FNO=6 -V=500 < numbers.tsv
Took 19.021369 seconds
Kept 2005 records
[download]

---

With the rise and rise of 'Social' network sites: 'Computers are making people easier to use everyday'

Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.

"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".

In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.
/blockquote

I thought your point whas that OP is actually do nothing with data (read=nothing, read+split=nothing too), and he's going to read every word on every page soon, then split time will be insignificant.

But it seems that you mean that OP benchmarks incorrect, because he benchmarks nothing vs split.

Otherwise I agree that split is can't be really optimized, just like I wrote above