It is far more efficient to return a reference to
a large string than to return the string itself.
Here are my benchmarks:
sub Str {
my $Str = q{
# Here follows about 100K of ASCII data
};
$Str;
}
timethese(10000, {
Str => q{ my $R = Str() }
});
Benchmark: timing 10000 iterations of Str...
Str: 29 wallclock secs (28.64 usr + 0.01 sys = 28.65 CPU)
sub Ref {
my $Str = q{
# Here follows the same 100K of ASCII data
};
\$Str;
}
timethese(10000, {
Ref => q{ my $R = Ref() }
});
Benchmark: timing 10000 iterations of Ref...
Ref: 9 wallclock secs (10.50 usr + 0.00 sys = 10.50 CPU)