in reply to array overhead

Is there any way to either reduce the overhead of an array

No. The overhead is a result of the way data structures are represented Perl-internally (see PerlGuts Illustrated).

or find a more compact storage method

Most likely yes. The details depend on what exactly you are storing in the arrays, and how easily and fast you want to access it.

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Re^2: array overhead
by Anonymous Monk on Jan 05, 2011 at 21:53 UTC
    One string, four floats, and an integer. I'd like to access it as quickly as possible - that is to say with as little CPU overhead as I can manage.
[reply]

      In this case I'd pack each set (with the fixed-sized elements (floats/int) first) into a single (binary) string.

[reply]

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