Your third point made me curious. Running the below benchmark doesn't show a serious slowdown for the unpack code:

Running perl-all test.pl

=== base/perl5.8.9      5.008009 i686-linux-64int
      Rate  buk  ike
buk 65.4/s   -- -41%
ike  110/s  68%   --
=== base/tperl5.8.9     5.008009 i686-linux-thread-multi-64int-ld
      Rate  buk  ike
buk 60.8/s   -- -37%
ike 95.9/s  58%   --
=== base/perl5.10.1     5.010001 i686-linux-64int
      Rate  buk  ike
buk 61.9/s   -- -39%
ike  102/s  65%   --
=== base/tperl5.10.1    5.010001 i686-linux-thread-multi-64int-ld
      Rate  buk  ike
buk 55.4/s   -- -37%
ike 88.4/s  60%   --
=== base/perl5.12.2     5.012002 i686-linux-64int
      Rate  buk  ike
buk 63.0/s   -- -41%
ike  107/s  70%   --
=== base/tperl5.12.2    5.012002 i686-linux-thread-multi-64int-ld
      Rate  buk  ike
buk 54.3/s   -- -39%
ike 88.4/s  63%   --
=== base/perl5.14.0     5.014000 i686-linux-64int
      Rate  buk  ike
buk 59.9/s   -- -49%
ike  117/s  96%   --
=== base/tperl5.14.0    5.014000 i686-linux-thread-multi-64int-ld
      Rate  buk  ike
buk 52.8/s   -- -49%
ike  104/s  97%   --

[download]

Enjoy, Have FUN! H.Merijn

In reply to Re^4: Working with fixed length files by Tux
in thread Working with fixed length files by vendion

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