I have code that 'collects' data 1 byte at a time. I append that byte to a scalar.

Pseudo-code:
while (something) {
   $byte = get_byte();
   $all .= $byte;
}

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This can run for a couple hundred thousand bytes, and it occurred to me that ".=" might actually be very inefficient depending on how it works.

So,
1) Does .= result in lots of data copying as I suspect?

2) What is the most efficient way to append a byte to the end of a scalar?

Thanks for the help.

In reply to what's faster than .= by xafwodahs

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