Heres a good way to test: 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use Benchmark ;
use strict;

my $count = shift || "-3" ;  # set the test counter 
my @array = ();

#load up an array of crap
for ( my $i = 0; $i < 1000; $i++)
{ push @array, rand(256); }


open NULL, "+/dev/null" or die "$!";
timethese (
    $count,
    {
        'join'      => '&print_join',
        'map'       => '&print_map',
        'field sep' => '&print_field'
    }
);

# use join to print each array elemnet. 
sub print_join
{
    print NULL join("\n", @array) ;
}

# use map to print each array elemnt, 
sub print_map 
{
    print NULL map{ $_ .= "\n"}  @array ;
}

# use map to print each array elemnt, 
sub print_field
{
    local $,="\n";
    print NULL  @array ;
}

[download]
Ran for default 3 CPU seconds: 
./time_print 
Benchmark: running field sep, join, map, each for at least 3 CPU seconds...
 field sep:  3 wallclock secs ( 3.15 usr +  0.00 sys =  3.15 CPU) @ 53645.71/s (n=168984)
      join:  3 wallclock secs ( 3.05 usr +  0.01 sys =  3.06 CPU) @ 1256.86/s (n=3846)
       map:  5 wallclock secs ( 4.56 usr +  0.04 sys =  4.60 CPU) @ 119.78/s (n=551)
looks like the field sepperator is the fastest with 53,645.71 /sec
hope this helps

In reply to Re: Request for further enlightenment by yodabjorn
in thread Request for further enlightenment by BrowserUk

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