I don't understand. Are you asserting that it is a bug that 1e11 & 1 doesn't die (or fail in some other way)? If so, then you didn't counter my point that %2 works for a ton more cases than &1. No, %2 doesn't work on huge numbers that don't fit accurately into an NV (but does work on huge numbers when you use an appropriate format for the huge numbers) nor on Russian words nor JPEG images. And, yes, writing "2" as "1.99..." leads to surprises. Of course, &1 doesn't fair any better on these straw men.

Or are you asserting that &1 should work directly on NVs? That'd be a non-trivial design change, so I wouldn't casually call that a "bug". If that were implemented in a way that made &1 work for detecting odd NVs, then it'd probably at least make it easier to see the speed difference between it and %2 (but then you'd be forced to use %2 anyway because it'd be trivially faster, I bet).

I'm shocked people can spend so much effort just trying to see if there is a speed difference between the two when it so clearly obvious (because it is so hard to even see a difference) that any difference that there is doesn't matter in the slightest.

I use %2 because 11- and 16-digit numbers are real, practical, useful things to be able to deal with right now (and I can even upgrade to some module for even bigger numbers with no changes). It is a "best practice" and most of the time works great (it always works great unless you have other problems, like using inappropriate storage for the numbers you are dealing with).

&1 often works but has zero real advantages (the speed difference, if anyone manages to show that there even is one, is of no consequence, even in fanciful extreme situations), except for people who can't equate "even" with "divisible by two" with "has 0 remainder when divided by two" and are only comfortable with equating "even" with "has some bit unset" (in what representation?).

Using &1 means that your code won't work when someone uses it with a perfectly valid Perl number that doesn't happen to fit in a UV. That is a real, practical disadvantage.

/me regrets having posted this already.

Enjoy.

- tye        

In reply to Re^4: &1 is no faster than %2 when checking for oddness. Oh well. ("bug"?) by tye
in thread &1 is no faster than %2 when checking for oddness. Oh well. by diotalevi

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