Why is split not up to the task? It seems to me that it is faster than your regex.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Benchmark;

my $column = 6;
my $delim = " ";
my $s = qq(a bb ccc dddd eeee fff gggggg hh i jjjjjjjj);

timethese (1000000,{
    'regex' => sub {
        my($result) = $s =~ /(([^$delim]*)$delim?){$column}/;
    },
    'split' => sub {
        my ($result) = (split /$delim/, $s)[$column]
    }
});

__END__
Benchmark: timing 1000000 iterations of regex, split...
     regex: 10 wallclock secs ( 8.90 usr + -0.00 sys =  8.90 CPU)
     split:  9 wallclock secs ( 8.27 usr +  0.02 sys =  8.29 CPU)

Benchmark: timing 1000000 iterations of regex, split...
     regex:  9 wallclock secs ( 8.69 usr +  0.09 sys =  8.78 CPU)
     split:  7 wallclock secs ( 7.87 usr + -0.00 sys =  7.87 CPU)

[download]

The only difference is that split will start numbering your columns from 0, so to get the 6th column you should use $column = 5;

In reply to Re: What is the fastest way to extract data from a delimited string? by cchampion
in thread What is the fastest way to extract data from a delimited string? by thezip

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.