return \@array or @array

[Joel Bernstein]

Just my little test ;-)


On 12 September 2013 16:28, Jasper <jaspermccrea at gmail.com> wrote:

> Shurely 100 elements :)
>
>
> On 12 September 2013 15:08, Joel Bernstein <joel at fysh.org> wrote:
>
> > You're wrong. Where you're going wrong is assuming that "return @foo" is
> > going to "return an array". It returns a list of values, the same list
> that
> > the array held in the subroutine scope.
> >
> > That is:
> >
> > sub foo {
> >   my @foo = 1..100;
> >   return @foo;
> > }
> >
> > sub bar {
> >   my @bar = 1..100;
> >   return \@bar;
> > }
> >
> > foo() will return a list of 99 elements.
> > bar() will return a list of 1 element, which is a reference to an array
> > containing 99 elements.
> >
> > Does that make more sense?
> >
> > /joel
> >
> >
> > On 12 September 2013 16:02, Jérôme Étévé <jerome.eteve at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Hi all,
> > >
> > > I reckon there's a popular belief going around that A is "faster" than
> B
> > >
> > > sub fA{ ... ; return \@array; }
> > > sub fB{ ... ; return @array; }
> > >
> > > foreach my $thing ( @{fa()} ){ ... }
> > > foreach my $thing ( fB() ){ ... }
> > >
> > > My almost blind faith in the Perl internals gives me the gut feeling
> > > that as arrays are a very native Type in Perl, and the underlying AV
> > > holds a reference anyway (at the end of the day, it's C..), it
> > > shouldn't make much difference.
> > >
> > > And that building a Perl reference of something that's already a C
> > > space reference isn't going to help much.
> > >
> > > Any insight?
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > >
> > > Jerome.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Jerome Eteve
> > > +44(0)7738864546
> > > http://www.eteve.net/
> > >
> > >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Jasper
>
>