in reply to Re: Splitting into variables columned data without delimiters with a regexp ?
in thread Splitting into variables columned data without delimiters with a regexp ?

Hi BrowserUK and thank again for your gentle help ! You are totally right: I will investigate the global unpack you suggest and will let you know the result... I was thinking about solutions with sprintf or split too but I doubt they will be faster than a global unpack.
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Re^3: Splitting into variables columned data without delimiters with a regexp ?
by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Nov 01, 2011 at 09:46 UTC
    I was thinking about solutions with sprintf or split too

    split also invokes the regex engine, and doesn't really lend itself to the task, so it's not going to help any.

    I've no idea how sprintf could be used for this as its primary purpose is composing strings, not decomposing them.

    The regex engine can decompose fix field data surprisingly efficiently, but it will never beat unpack that was designed for this express purpose:

    cmpthese -1,{ a => q[ my $s='x'x1100; my@bits= unpack'(A6A5)*',$s; ], b => q[ my $s='x'x1100; my@bits= $s=~m[(.{6})(.{5})]g; ], };; Rate b a b 4516/s -- -6% a 4780/s 6% --

    Not huge savings but they grow with size:

    cmpthese -1,{ a => q[ my $s='x'x11000; my@bits= unpack'(A6A5)*',$s; ], b => q[ my $s='x'x11000; my@bits= $s=~m[(.{6})(.{5})]g; ], };; Rate b a b 427/s -- -10% a 471/s 11% --

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