note
d_i_r_t_y
<p>
sorry juerd, can't agree. another common idiom that noone's mentioned is this:
</p>
<code>
sub do_stuff
{
my $this = shift;
my $session = shift
|| die "Missing req'd Session argument";
my $cgi = shift || new CGI ();
...
}
</code>
<p>
aesthetics aside, here are some hard figures on efficiency (slightly reformatted):
</p>
<code>
[matt@dirty matt]$ ./test_arg_passing.pl
Benchmark: timing 2000000 iterations of
argumentative_1arg,
argumentative_3args,
direct_1arg,
direct_3args,
shifty_1arg,
shifty_3args...
argumentative_1arg: 17 wallclock secs
(17.69 usr + 0.01 sys = 17.70 CPU) @ 112994.35/s (n=2000000)
argumentative_3args: 21 wallclock secs
(21.93 usr + 0.02 sys = 21.95 CPU) @ 91116.17/s (n=2000000)
direct_1arg: 10 wallclock secs
(10.86 usr + 0.04 sys = 10.90 CPU) @ 183486.24/s (n=2000000)
direct_3args: 13 wallclock secs
(12.24 usr + 0.02 sys = 12.26 CPU) @ 163132.14/s (n=2000000)
shifty_1arg: 17 wallclock secs
(18.07 usr + 0.03 sys = 18.10 CPU) @ 110497.24/s (n=2000000)
shifty_3args: 23 wallclock secs
(23.91 usr + 0.01 sys = 23.92 CPU) @ 83612.04/s (n=2000000)
total: 42000000
</code>
<p>
not much of a difference, though the triple shift example is a bit pathological. here's the code for the above:
</p>
<code>
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use Benchmark;
use strict;
package ArgTest;
sub shifty_1arg {
my $this = shift;
my $first_arg = shift;
$$this += $first_arg;
}
sub shifty_3args {
my $this = shift;
my $first_arg = shift;
my $second_arg = shift;
my $third_arg = shift;
$$this += $first_arg + $second_arg + $third_arg;
}
sub argumentative_1arg {
my( $this, $first_arg ) = @_;
$$this += $first_arg;
}
sub argumentative_3args {
my( $this, $first_arg, $second_arg, $third_arg ) = @_;
$$this += $first_arg + $second_arg + $third_arg;
}
sub direct_1arg {
${$_[0]} += $_[1];
}
sub direct_3args {
${$_[0]} += $_[1] + $_[2] + $_[3];
}
sub value { return ${$_[0]} }
package main;
my $total;
bless( my $object = \$total, 'ArgTest' );
my @args = ( 1 .. 3 );
timethese(
2_000_000,
{
shifty_1arg =>
sub { $object->shifty_1arg( @args ) },
argumentative_1arg =>
sub { $object->argumentative_1arg( @args ) },
direct_1arg =>
sub { $object->direct_1arg( @args ) },
shifty_3args =>
sub { $object->shifty_3args( @args ) },
argumentative_3args =>
sub { $object->argumentative_3args( @args ) },
direct_3args =>
sub { $object->direct_3args( @args ) },
}
);
print "total: " . $object->value . "\n";
</code>
<p>
matt
</p>
161471
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