use Benchmark qw(cmpthese); use List::Util qw(shuffle sum); use List::BinarySearch qw( binsearch_pos ); @sorted_data = 0 .. 255; @unsorted_data = shuffle @sorted_data; sub make_linear { my $aref = shift; return sub { my $sum; foreach my $x ( @{$aref} ) { if( $x > 128 ) { $sum += $x; } } return $sum; } } sub bsearched { return sum @sorted_data[ ( binsearch_pos { $a <=> $b } 129, @sorted_data ) .. $#sorted_data ]; } print "$_\n" for make_linear( \@sorted_data )->(), make_linear( \@unsorted_data)->(), bsearched(); cmpthese -10, { sorted => make_linear( \@sorted_data ), unsorted => make_linear( \@unsorted_data ), bsearched => \&bsearched, };