Here are three benchmarks and some cheezy benchmarking code for a hash, an array, and a variable. The access times are hardly very different. Variables are the fastest across the board, but if you are using variables to 'improve' your code I think your time is better spent looking at other things, like regexes, rather than trying to use only vars. Also, your code, with so many variables, may appear unreadable.
Benchmark: timing 1000000 iterations of hsh, reg, var...
       hsh:  0 wallclock secs ( 1.25 usr +  0.00 sys =  1.25 CPU) @ 79
+8084.60/s (n=1000000)
       reg:  2 wallclock secs ( 0.85 usr +  0.00 sys =  0.85 CPU) @ 11
+75088.13/s (n=1000000)
       var:  1 wallclock secs ( 0.77 usr +  0.00 sys =  0.77 CPU) @ 12
+97016.86/s (n=1000000)
Benchmark: timing 1000000 iterations of hsh, reg, var...
       hsh:  2 wallclock secs ( 1.17 usr +  0.00 sys =  1.17 CPU) @ 85
+2514.92/s (n=1000000)
       reg:  1 wallclock secs ( 0.85 usr +  0.01 sys =  0.86 CPU) @ 11
+61440.19/s (n=1000000)
       var:  0 wallclock secs ( 0.75 usr +  0.00 sys =  0.75 CPU) @ 13
+31557.92/s (n=1000000)
Benchmark: timing 1000000 iterations of hsh, reg, var...
       hsh:  2 wallclock secs ( 1.18 usr +  0.00 sys =  1.18 CPU) @ 84
+5308.54/s (n=1000000)
       reg:  1 wallclock secs ( 0.85 usr +  0.00 sys =  0.85 CPU) @ 11
+75088.13/s (n=1000000)
       var:  1 wallclock secs ( 0.77 usr +  0.00 sys =  0.77 CPU) @ 12
+97016.86/s (n=1000000)
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Benchmark;
my @foo = (1 .. 30);
my %foo;
my $foo = 10000;
for (1.30)
{

  $foo{$_} = $_;
}

timethese(1000000,{
                var=>q( my $v = $foo; ) ,
                reg=>q( my $v = $foo[30];),
                 hsh=>q( my $v = $foo{'30'};)
                });

1;

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In reply to Re: Hashes/Scalars and Memory Usage by InfiniteSilence
in thread Hashes/Scalars and Memory Usage by Anonymous Monk

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