Whoop! a benchmark question! Ahhh...

# for 45, 5
         Rate  loop recur
loop  30118/s    --  -37%
recur 47528/s   58%    --

# for 296, 111
         Rate recur  loop
recur  9303/s    --  -36%
loop  14426/s   55%    --

# for 298, 111
        Rate recur  loop
recur 4672/s    --  -45%
loop  8445/s   81%    --

Interesting what a win the loop version is on that last one...

--
$you = new YOU;
honk() if $you->love(perl)