in reply to Re^2: Random Numbers under XP: Translating XS to Win32::API
in thread Random Numbers under XP: Translating XS to Win32::API

I noted your use of the 'V*' directive for the unpack call. Although with random data, distinguishing between big-endian and little-endian is superfluous.

True, but as the platform is little-endian, converting using V* rather than N* saves doing a lot of fiddly byte and bit-twiddling. This really shows up when you unpack a few thousand ulongs.

Below I timed unpacking the same 1000 values both ways: 

P:\test>471107
Name "main::SystemFunction036" used only once: possible typo at P:\tes
+t\471107.pl line 14.
  1 trial  of N* non-native BigEndian (  1.848ms total), 1.848ms/trial

  1 trial  of  V* native LittleEndian (    310us total), 310us/trial

[download]

It essentially is the difference between doing nothing and doing something (fiddly).

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