in reply to /o is dead, long live qr//!

There is not a noticeable increase in speed in using $x = qr/.../; /$x/ instead of $x = '...'; /$x/o; in the testing I have done. And the /o modifier is ONLY useful if the regex has any variables in it.

The place where qr// is important is when looping over strings and patterns. If you do a benchmark of code like this: 

while (<>) {
  for my $p (qr/a+b/, qr/c+d/, qr/e+f/) { foo() if /$p/ }
}

# vs.

while (<>) {
  for my $s ('a+b', 'c+d', 'e+f') { foo() if /$s/ }
}

[download]
The qr// version will be considerably faster because Perl knows the regexes are already compiled, whereas in the string version, we need to compile three regexes for every line of input.

_____________________________________________________
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:??;

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Re: /o is dead, long live qr//!
by Abigail-II (Bishop) on Jun 26, 2003 at 00:32 UTC
    Actually, I tend to shy away from using qr, because they are dead slow when interpolating into larger constructs. Building large regexes from smaller parts is something I do often. Here's a benchmark showing a dramatic difference: 
    #!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use Benchmark qw /cmpthese/;

cmpthese -2 => {
    qq  =>  'my $x = qq "[a]"; $x = qq "[a]$x" for 1 .. 100; "" =~ /$x
+/',
    qr  =>  'my $x = qr "[a]"; $x = qr "[a]$x" for 1 .. 100; "" =~ /$x
+/',
}
__END__

Benchmark: running qq, qr for at least 2 CPU seconds...
  qq:  6 wallclock secs ( 2.11 usr +  0.03 sys =  2.14 CPU) @ 5902.80/
+s (n=12632)
  qr:  4 wallclock secs ( 2.03 usr +  0.00 sys =  2.03 CPU) @ 39.90/s 
+(n=81)
     Rate     qr     qq
qr 39.9/s     --   -99%
qq 5903/s 14693%     --

    [download]

    Abigail

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[d/l]
      Too be fair, this is a problem with the *current* implementation of qr, and not the concept. Your two regexps are actually: 
      #UPDATE: While the previous verbose format was more
#        impressive, it was hideously long. See the
#        readmore for the literal strings.
$qq = "[a]"x100;
$qr = "(?-xism:[a]"x100 . ")"x100;

      [download]
      I think even a newbie could see that the latter is outrageously complicated...
      Read more... (5 kB)
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[d/l]
[select]
        I know how the qr stringifies, and that's exactly the problem. However, when qr was introduced (which was long after perl5 as suggested elsewhere in this thread, I think it was 5.005) it was suggested that qr would be faster when interpolating. Even if you change the middle part of the benchmark to $x = qq "$x" and $x = qr "$x", the qq is three times as fast as the qr.

        I've had programs come to a grinding halt after using qr too liberaly.

        Abigail

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[d/l]
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Re: Re: /o is dead, long live qr//!
by diotalevi (Canon) on Jun 25, 2003 at 23:46 UTC

    That's exactly what I said. The difference between $x as an object and $x as a string is a quick shortcut and an eq test.

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