Well, I have run a test on my Apple MacBook and SparkyLinux using Perl 5.40. But both of those systems are 64-bit with a modern Perl, and in each case, Perl seems to have limits but not sure why. I don't have unlimited memory in my computers, but I tried to create a string that is 4GB long, and Perl immediately said "Out of memory" and the program ended. So, it didn't even try to create the string. Then I tried to create a string that is 1GB, and after some time, it displayed a message that says "Killed", and then I was staring at the # prompt in Linux. So, then I tried to create an 800 MB string, and it worked. And this is how much memory I've got: 

# free
               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache  
+ available
Mem:         3290320     1522528     1677380      152628      397604  
+   1767792
Swap:              0           0           0

[download]

So, I can't really tell if my theory is right. I mean I would need a computer with 2 Exabytes of memory to see if it would work. But it seems I have more than 800 MB of free memory, yet it won't allow me to create a 1 GB string. I don't understand why it kills the process. Well, anyway, I just wanted to know what's a safe size for a string. So, it seems that if I create a program that works with 1 GB strings, it will run on most modern machines. But if I write a program that relies on creating and working with 2GB or 4GB strings, then that might fail on some systems. I guess, the bigger the string, the fewer computers will be able to handle it.

Btw I also checked the Perl machine used in this online site https://www.onlinegdb.com/online_perl_compiler, and I was able to create a 1 GB string with no problem! Yay! Now, when I tried to create a 1.5 GB string, my program just stopped working without any error message. So, I guess, they limit how much memory they allocate for anonymous users online and if a process tries to use more, it gets killed silently.

In reply to Re^2: maximum length of scalar in theory by harangzsolt33
in thread maximum length of scalar in theory by harangzsolt33

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