Interesting point. I use $data 8 times. Half as a boolean test (no de-reference) and half as a hash reference (to recover one or more values). I guess (and maybe I'm wrong about this) that it doesn't worth the benchmark...

Here is the complete function code:

sub inputBox{
  # Don't uncomment, use @_ instead
  #   my $action_url = shift; # $_[0]
  #   my $msgid      = shift; # $_[1]
  #   my $action     = shift; # $_[2]
  my $data = $_[3]; # oh, I needed this one, I wasn't able to use a ha
+sh-slice from a hash-reference in one shot.
<readmore>
  return
qq{<form action="$_[0]" method="post">\n}.
($_[1]? qq{  <input type="hidden" name="message_id" value="$_[1]" />\n
+}:'').
qq{  <input type="hidden" name="action" value="$_[2]" />
  <input type="hidden" name="commit" value="1" />
  <table align="center" border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0">
    <tr valign="middle" align="center" bgcolor="$color{TABLE_HEAD}">
      <td colspan="2"> }
  .($_[2] eq 'edit'? "Edit Message #$_[1]" : 'Compose New Message' ).
  qq{ </td>
    </tr>
    <tr valign="middle" align="left" >
      <td> Author: </td>
      <td>
}.( $_[2] eq 'edit'? q{        <input type="text" name="author" size="
+40" }.
  ( $data? qq{value="$data->{author}"} : &TWiki::Func::getWikiUserName
+() )
 . qq{ />} : &TWiki::Func::getWikiUserName() ) . q{
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr valign="middle" align="left">
      <td>Due Date: </td>
      <td>} . &gen_date_selector( 'due', ( $data? @$data{'day','month'
+,'year','hour','minute'} : (localtime)[5]+1900, (localtime)[4]+1, (lo
+caltime)[3], 23, 59 ) ) . qq{
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr valign="middle" align="left">
      <td>Message: </td>
      <td>
        <textarea rows="5" name="msg" cols="50">}.($data? $data->{msg}
+ : '' ).qq{</textarea>
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr valign="middle" align="left">
      <td>
        <input type="checkbox" name="dropped" value="Y" }.($data && $d
+ata->{dropped} eq 'Y'? 'CHECKED':'' ).q{>&nbsp;Dropped.
      </td>
      <td align="right">
        <input type="submit" name="change" value="Change Message">
      </td>
    </tr>
  </table>
</form>
};
}
[download]