Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!texsun!convex!news
From: tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: wc clone
Message-ID: <1990Dec20.020632.10077@convex.com>
Date: 20 Dec 90 02:06:32 GMT
References: <1990Dec20.003805.8017@convex.com>
Sender: news@convex.com (news access account)
Reply-To: tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen)
Organization: CONVEX Software Development, Richardson, TX
Lines: 17
Nntp-Posting-Host: pixel.convex.com

I save a LOT of time if I make the part that counts words throw out the
string instead of save it:

    $twords += $words += s/\S+//g;

I go from 1.7 seconds on /etc/termcap to 1.0 seconds.    It's still
a long ways from the C wc's 0.25 seconds, but not too shabby either.
Anybody got a cleverer (and faster) algorithm?

I sometimes wish I could just count the number of occurrences without
having to make a new string.  Not very often, though.

--tom
--
Tom Christiansen		tchrist@convex.com	convex!tchrist
"With a kernel dive, all things are possible, but it sure makes it hard
 to look at yourself in the mirror the next morning."  -me