in reply to fastest pattern match

Read the file one line at a time. When you hit your match exit: 

open( FILE, "file" ) || die ("The file not there ");

while (<>){
    if (m/$regex/) {
         print "matched!\n";
         close (FILE);
         exit;
    }
}

[download]

Neil Watson
watson-wilson.ca

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: fastest pattern match
by flounder99 (Friar) on Jun 24, 2002 at 19:50 UTC
    You should use m/$regex/o or the regex will be compiled every iteration, slowing things down considerably

    --

    flounder

[reply]
[d/l]
      Incorrect. It will not be compiled on every iteration, but its string form will be compared with its previous string form, to see whether it needs recompiling.

      _____________________________________________________
      Jeff[japhy]Pinyan: Perl, regex, and perl hacker, who'd like a job (NYC-area)
      s++=END;++y(;-P)}y js++=;shajsj<++y(p-q)}?print:??;

[reply]
        Thanks,

        I remember reading that it still did the recompile even if the variable in the regex did not change. Of course I read that a LONG time ago. Apparently it has been fixed.(probably a long time ago) So would the /o faster by avoiding the extra string compare? I know this would probably be insignificant unless there where a bajillion iterations. But I was just curious.
        Do you even know anything about regexes? (see sig)

        --

        flounder

        Do you even know anything about perl?
        --Anonymous Coward to Tom Christiansen on slashdot

[reply]

      That's JAN-AR-IK..(like generic) Just another Regexp Question.

      Also it might be worth mentioning that meta characters in $regex will still be parsed. Make sure you intended that to happen.

      --

      Brother Frankus.

      ¤

[reply]
      Good advice in general,
      but in this case there'll only be one interation.

      Update: Fastolfe's right...my bad...mea culpa

      ~monk d4vis
      #!/usr/bin/fnord

[reply]
        Why? If we were sure the match would always occur on the first line, why search for it at all?
[reply]

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