use Benchmark;

my $foo = "bar";
my $test = new tester();

my ($buffer, $i);

my $a1 = new Benchmark;
for( $i=1; $i<1_000_000; $i++ ) {
	$buffer = $foo;
}
my $a2 = new Benchmark;


my $b1 = new Benchmark;
for( $i=1; $i<1_000_000; $i++ ) {
	$buffer = $test->report();
}
my $b2 = new Benchmark;

my $diff1 = timediff($a1, $a2);
my $diff2 = timediff($b1, $b2);

print "Variable copying: " . timestr($diff1) . "\n";
print "Object copying: " . timestr($diff2) . "\n";


package tester;

sub new {
	my $class = shift;

	my $self = { 'foo' => "bar" };

	bless $self, $class;

	return $self;

}

sub report {
	my $self = shift;

	return $self->{'foo'};

}

##</code><code>##

Variable copying: -1 wallclock secs (-0.81 usr +  0.00 sys = -0.81 CPU)
Object copying: -5 wallclock secs (-5.15 usr +  0.00 sys = -5.15 CPU)