What happens if you return an array reference instead of an array at the end of this function? (Depending on how large $limit is, you might cause Perl to copy a lot of data.)

What happens if, instead of reading the whole file into an array and then sorting it, you keep track of the largest n lines you've seen and read the file line by line?

Improve your skills with Modern Perl: the free book.

In reply to Re: Optimizing I/O intensive subroutine by chromatic
in thread Optimizing I/O intensive subroutine by hperange

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