Bug #5013 for String-Charcount: why pass scalar?

Fri Jan 23 08:19:42 2004 rjbs [...] cpan.org - Ticket created

Subject:

why pass scalar?

I think it's very odd that $string must be passed as a reference. It's pretty unnatural. This module might make more sense if it took a plain ol' string. Also, passing the hashref returned by $count back to &percentage is weird. Why not have percentage call count on its own. If you're concerned about optimization, let $count be passed optionally.

Fri Jan 23 12:38:12 2004 schubiger [...] cpan.org - Correspondence added

1st point: I enforced passing scalar as refs in case strings would become rather big; I am still unsure whether to switch to plain scalar dumping. 2nd point: This is a rather valuable advise; it will be changed until the next release. The extra passing, as you originated the source, has arisen from (pre?-)optimization.

Fri Jan 23 12:56:59 2004 Guest - Correspondence added

From:

rjbs [...] cpan.org

[SCHUBIGER - Fri Jan 23 12:38:12 2004]: Show quoted text

> 1st point: I enforced passing scalar as refs in case strings would > become rather big; I am still unsure whether to switch to plain > scalar dumping.

You're not necessarily saving anything. @_ contains aliases to the passed values, not copies, so if you create your character array with @array = split //, @_[0] then you gain nothing by passing a reference -- except for more confusing code. Show quoted text

> 2nd point: This is a rather valuable advise; it will be changed > until the next release. The extra passing, as you originated the > source, has arisen from (pre?-)optimization.

...and premature optimization is the root of all evil! :)

Fri Jan 23 14:48:55 2004 schubiger [...] cpan.org - Correspondence added

Update: Scalar ref passing removed and hashref passing to percentage() voluntary.

Fri Jan 23 14:49:23 2004 schubiger [...] cpan.org - Status changed from 'new' to 'resolved'