I seek the wisdom of those with knowledge of The Source.

What overhead is incurred when a script reads from <DATA>?

Does the runtime actually open the script file and seek to a known (remembered) location? Or is some deeper optimization at work?

Is it any more or less expensive to put data after __DATA__ vs. storing it in a separate file? Are there advantages beyond convenience and the assumption that the script will still be in the kernel's disk cache?

In reply to Overhead of __DATA__? by dws

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