An order of magnitude is not actually correct although the point is *of course* {sigh} valid. For small files the difference is negligible. The gains increase with file size. Nonetheless faster is faster is better.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

my $file = shift;
my $iter = shift;
my $size = -s $file;
print "File size $size Bytes\n";

my $start = time;
for (1..$iter) {
    open FILE, $file or die $!;
    my $stuff = join'',<FILE>;
    close FILE;
}
printf "Join took %d seconds for %d iterations\n", (time-$start), $ite
+r;

$start = time;
for (1..$iter) {
    {
        local $/;
        open FILE, $file or die $!;
        my $stuff = <FILE>;
        close FILE;
    }
}
printf "Undef \$/ took %d seconds for %d iterations\n", (time-$start),
+ $iter;

__END__

C:\>perl test.pl bigfile.txt 2000
File size 47753 Bytes
Join took 72 seconds for 2000 iterations
Undef $/ took 21 seconds for 2000 iterations

C:\>perl test.pl test.pl 2000
File size 878 Bytes
Join took 8 seconds for 2000 iterations
Undef $/ took 7 seconds for 2000 iterations

C:\>
[download]

cheers

tachyon

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