hash speed

[Ken Gillett]

I have a script that creates a hash, up to several thousand key=>value 
pairs. Each value is a string that is created by adding to it 
repeatedly, maybe hundreds of times, each addition probably about 10 
bytes.

I can do this in (at least) 2 ways. One is to repeatedly concatenate ( 
.= ) the additional string onto a scalar variable and then, once it has 
been fully created, to add this variable to the hash with its 
appropriate key. The other is to directly add onto the hash value 
itself, no other variable involved.

My question is:-
        Which is faster in operation?
I don't know enough about the internal workings of perl's memory 
structures (actually I know nothing about that:-) to be able to hazard 
a guess at this. Maybe it makes no measurable difference, but maybe one 
is definitely the better modus operandi.

Can anyone answer this?

Ken  G i l l e t t
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