[comp.lang.perl] Optimizing Perl malloc's

tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) (07/27/90)

I have a script that repeatedly appends words onto a string, then prints
and clears the string.

	while (...) {
		$coll = '';

		while (...) {
			$coll .= &getaword;
			...
		}

		&mess_with($coll);
		print RESULT $coll;
	}

It doesn't run as fast as I'd like, and I'm looking for things to tweak.

Question -- am I doing one or more malloc's every time I append a word?
Am I wasting a lot of system overhead this way?  If so, is there a
reasonable way to "pre-allocate" or somehow avoid the problem?
-- 
Stalinism begins at home.  }{  Tom Neff  }{  tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM