in reply to Re^2: Out of Memory
in thread Out of Memory

The simplest, fastest and most efficient way to count the nulls (or any character) in a string is:

my $nulls = $string =~ tr[\0][\0];

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Update: corrected '0' to '\0'. Thanks to davido.

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Re^4: Out of Memory
by Michael Kittrell (Novice) on Mar 28, 2013 at 19:05 UTC
    Thanks... I didn see a reference to it in the thread that I got the while loop from but it noted that TR can only be used with single characters? which works in this case but maybe not others? I did try the TR thing and it does work for my data set without a memory error.

    Are you sure this is the most efficient way to do this? Seems like to me that its creating a copy of the original string and trying to replace the matches before it outputs the count. (as far as i can tell given reading a quick page on teh TR function) I wouldn't think that would be as memory efficient as the while code... but I don't understand the internals of the while code either, if it instantiates a huge list the interates through them, I can see how that wouldn't be as efficient as teh TR code.

[reply]
      Are you sure this is the most efficient way to do this?

      Yes, I am quite sure.

      1. tr doesn't make copies, it operates in-place.
      2. It is optimised internally to recognise that when the source and replacements are identical, it is in 'counting mode' only.

      For multi-character substring counting avoid creating the huge list:

      $s = 'ab'x 10e6;;

++$n while $s=~ m[ab]g;;
print $n;;
10000000

      [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.
[reply]
[d/l]
        Ah that makes sense, I was wondering if it would not replace if both were the same.

        how does

        ++$n while $s=~ m[ab]g;;

        differ in execution from

        while($_=~s\0g) {count++}

        Thanks for sharing

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