The data in question is "built" by fetching from an external source - either a database, or a TokyoCabinet file - and is financial data - a string for the date, four floats, and an integer. After reading them in they will be accessed (mostly) sequentially in their raw form - as arrays. Basically, I need the arrays to be arrays, but not arrays with so much overhead. I'd prefer to avoid too much CPU overhead if at all possible (speed is a secondary concern), but pack or unpack might be an option.