Sounds fishy. Last year I wrote some code that used XML::Parser to parse and munge XML files of about 20 MB apiece, and on my not-particularly-new notebook it didn't take anywhere near that long. I can't remember if runtime was closer to 30 seconds or 3 minutes, but it certainly wasn't long enough that you'd walk away from your desk and not be finished when you got back.

        $perlmonks{seattlejohn} = 'John Clyman';