Perl: Optimising List Assignment
 

If I am copying the values from a function that returns a list value to a list of scalars, and I don't need all of the function's returns, do I gain any performance increase by assigning the unused values to undef? For example let's say I was using the localtime function, and all I wanted was the day, month, and year:

I could do this:
but I am wondering if this would be more efficient (speed-wise and memory-wise):

since the memory doesn't have to be allocated for the new variables, and the extra copying doesn't have to be done.

Is this true?

Thanks,
Mr. Snorfles

I looked over my post, and realized that would create a nine variable array -- probably not helpful. Any ideas how I should go about getting only those three values?

Thanks,
Mr. snorfles

Here ya go:

($DAY, $MONTH, $YEAR) = (localtime)[3,4,5];

Thanks... I didn't know you could do the indexing on lists like that.

--Mr. Snorfles

but, i don't think you'll gain much in speed or memory.
Remember, localtime is making a slow system call anyway - so whether it return 9 or 3 will be a drop in the bucket timewise.

As BB said, it's the overall fn elapsed time, not the num of returned values.
However, this sounds like 'premature optimization'.
If you really ALREADY have performance issues, a better (overall) algorithm will give you much larger gains.
You won't get anything out of fooling around with this stuff above.
Perhaps you could tell show us your code & mention where it seems slow?