Habit

I'm still trying to get everything configured to work right - When I have the code set up like this:

else {
   my $pos = -1;
   push @cPosns, $pos while ($pos = index($zazb, 'c', $pos+1)) >= 0;
   my $offset = $cPosns[rand @cPosns];
   $cell = sprintf '%.2f', popnum3( $x, $y, $copycop, $offset, );
}
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then

sub popnum3 {
    my ( $x, $y, $z, $offset ) = @_;
    if ( $y == 0 ) {
        $aob[$x][0] = $initial * ( 1 + $z );
    }
    else {
        while (1) {
            $aob[$x][$y] = $aob[$offset][ $y - 1 ] * ( 1 + $z );
            last;
        }
    }
    return $aob[$x][$y];
}
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It's reiterating over the entire string for every single 'a' or 'c' which starts fast then slows to a crawl

When I move this section

 my $pos = -1;
   push @cPosns, $pos while ($pos = index($zazb, 'c', $pos+1)) >= 0;
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above all the if/else's, to just under where $zazb is defined, then the $offset variable in

else {
   my $offset = $cPosns[rand @cPosns];
   $cell = sprintf '%.2f', popnum3( $x, $y, $copycop, $offset, );
}
[download]

becomes undefined when imported into popnum3.

So obviously I'm still missing something.

There is always at least 1 'c' in the string so that's not the problem.