Timing for 1000000 recursions: Mode: return takes sec: 5.55880403518677 Mode: goto takes sec: 4.51015114784241 Mode: die takes sec: 1.70386385917664 #### use Time::HiRes qw/time/; no warnings 'recursion'; our $mode; sub rec { my $i=shift; $i--; if ($i<0) { return if $mode eq "return"; goto OUT if $mode eq "goto"; die "finished" if $mode eq "die"; } rec($i) } $|=1; my $recs=1000000; print "Timing for $recs recursions:\n" ; for $mode (qw/return goto die/) { print "\tMode: $mode takes sec: "; my $start=time; eval { rec($recs); }; OUT: # print $@ if $@; print time-$start,"\n"; }