in reply to Re: Re: Re: Zip Code Script
in thread Zip Code Script

FYI, here was my test (assuming worst case of 'not found'):
#!/usr/local/bin/perl -l -w use strict; use Benchmark; my @zips = qw( 92713 92714 92715 92716 92717 92718 92719 ); my $zip = '11111'; timethese (50000,{ HASH => \&hash_it, LINEAR => \&linear, LINEAR_GREP => \&linear_grep, }); sub hash_it { my %zips; @zips{@zips} = undef; exists $zips{$zip}; } sub linear { for (@zips) { return 1 if $_ eq $zip; } return 0; } sub linear_grep { grep { $_ eq $zip } @zips; } /usr/home/dougw/tst>./timeit Benchmark: timing 50000 iterations of HASH, LINEAR, LINEAR_GREP ... HASH: 3 wallclock secs ( 2.65 usr + 0.01 sys = 2.66 CPU) @ 18 +796.99/s (n=50000) LINEAR: 1 wallclock secs ( 1.84 usr + 0.00 sys = 1.84 CPU) @ 27 +173.91/s (n=50000) LINEAR_GREP: 0 wallclock secs ( 1.16 usr + 0.00 sys = 1.16 CPU) @ 4 +3103.45/s (n=50000)
Update:I don't include positive searches because we don't know the probability of WebSmart's users of entering a 'found' zip code. So I assume that since there's so few (5 - 10) 'valid' zip codes, and so many possible zip codes to enter, it will probably be 'not found'. Positive searches would just make the results lean more toward the LINEAR search, I don't know how many positive searches it would take before LINEAR would be better than the LINEAR_GREP. Either is better than the HASH, though.

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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Zip Code Script
by merlyn (Sage) on Dec 13, 2000 at 01:26 UTC
    Ahh, OK, now you have to include some postitive searches as well as negative searches. And I bet you still won't find an item count where building a hash is cheaper than just linear searching through the data.

    -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker