in reply to Re^3: Convert string to array - performance challenge
in thread Convert string to array - performance challenge

my @a; $a[ $_ ] = chop $buffer for length($buffer) .. 0;

You have an off-by-one error. If you could do that, it should be

my @a; $a[ $_ ] = chop $buffer for length($buffer)-1 .. 0;

A simple fix for the already-described problem is to use negative indexing:

my @a; $a[ -$_ ] = chop $buffer for 1..length($buffer);