I know little about XS modules but I was looking at RPi::DHT11 and noticed that it is an XS module which seemed a little strange. Hence the question here. I was going to email stevieb, the author and ask but thought it would be good to get other people's take on this.

My understanding of an XS module is that it uses XSLoader to load C / C++ / C# code. The Perl is just a wrapper around the loaded code with the Perl doing little processing. I believe the main reason to do this is for speed as compiled languages of the C family are faster than interpreted languages such as Perl. Is that about right so far?

Assuming that is something like correct...
Why would the RPi::DHT11 module use XS? The DHT11 is a temperature and humidity sensor with a maximum frequency of 0.5Hz (one read per 2 seconds). So speed is not the issue here!

What reason would there be for creating an XS module in this use case? Would it not be easier and simpler and just as fast given the speed of the sensor, to write all the code in Perl?

I'm hoping for more insights into the world of XS modules here...

In reply to XS Modules - why and when? by Bod

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.