(tye)RE: The Best Infinite Loop

[tye]

in reply to The Best Infinite Loop

I looked at those benchmarks and said, "Well, those all took the same amount of time." Then I read the conclusions drawn and frowned. The numbers are way too close together to determine that any of these are faster than the other. In fact, I'd be surprised if the first two don't compile to the exact same parse tree.

Compare my benchmarks:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use Benchmark;

timethese( 1000, {
    '0while' => sub { $_ = 0; while (1)   { $_++; last if ($_ == 10000
+); } },
    '0for'   => sub { $_ = 0; for   (;;)  { $_++; last if ($_ == 10000
+); } },
    '0block' => sub { $_ = 0;             { $_++; redo if ($_ < 10000)
+;  } },
    '1while' => sub { $_ = 0; while (1)   { $_++; last if ($_ == 10000
+); } },
    '1for'   => sub { $_ = 0; for   (;;)  { $_++; last if ($_ == 10000
+); } },
    '1block' => sub { $_ = 0;             { $_++; redo if ($_ < 10000)
+;  } },
});
__END__
Benchmark: timing 1000 iterations of
0block, 0for, 0while, 1block, 1for, 1while...
    0block:  7 wallclock secs (  6.81 CPU) @ 146.84/s
      0for:  7 wallclock secs (  6.98 CPU) @ 143.27/s
    0while:  7 wallclock secs (  6.70 CPU) @ 149.25/s
    1block:  6 wallclock secs (  6.37 CPU) @ 156.99/s
      1for:  6 wallclock secs (  6.26 CPU) @ 159.74/s
    1while:  6 wallclock secs (  6.32 CPU) @ 158.23/s

Note that the first time for(;;) is the slowest and the second time it is the fastest.

I'm sticking with while(1) since I think it looks nicer.

        - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")

[rdw]

So I tried it (with Deparse)...

while ()  { $_++; last if $_ == 1000; }
while (1) { $_++; last if $_ == 1000; }
for (;;)  { $_++; last if $_ == 1000; }

perl -MO=Deparse test.pl

for (;;) {
    ++$_;
    last if $_ == 1000;
}
for (;;) {
    ++$_;
    last if $_ == 1000;
}
for (;;) {
    ++$_;
    last if $_ == 1000;
}
test.pl syntax OK

So they should be all the same speed. I'm with tye on this one - I'll be sticking with with while(1) since I think it looks nicer.

Have fun,

rdw

[BlaisePascal]

Those three parse the same, but the block loops don't parse that way. In fact, there are at least three different ways to do an infinite loop with redo that parse differently... So I modified tye's benchmark, and got:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use Benchmark;

timethese( 1000, 
  {
   '0while' => sub { $_ = 0; while (1)   { $_++; last if ($_ == 10000)
+; } },
   '0for'   => sub { $_ = 0; for   (;;)  { $_++; last if ($_ == 10000)
+; } },
   '0redo1' => sub { $_ = 0;   { $_++; redo if     ($_ <  10000);     
+  } },
   '0redo2' => sub { $_ = 0;   { $_++; redo unless ($_ == 10000);     
+  } },
   '0redo3' => sub { $_ = 0;   { $_++; last if     ($_ == 10000); redo
+; } },
   '1while' => sub { $_ = 0; while (1)   { $_++; last if ($_ == 10000)
+; } },
   '1for'   => sub { $_ = 0; for   (;;)  { $_++; last if ($_ == 10000)
+; } },
   '1redo1' => sub { $_ = 0;   { $_++; redo if     ($_ <  10000);     
+  } },
   '1redo2' => sub { $_ = 0;   { $_++; redo unless ($_ == 10000);     
+  } },
   '1redo3' => sub { $_ = 0;   { $_++; last if     ($_ == 10000); redo
+; } },
  });
__END__
Benchmark: timing 1000 iterations of 0for, 0redo1, 0redo2, 0redo3, 0wh
+ile, 1for, 1redo1, 1redo2, 1redo3, 1while...
      0for: 14 wallclock secs (11.43 usr +  0.00 sys = 11.43 CPU)
    0redo1: 14 wallclock secs (11.62 usr +  0.00 sys = 11.62 CPU)
    0redo2: 15 wallclock secs (12.68 usr +  0.00 sys = 12.68 CPU)
    0redo3: 15 wallclock secs (12.36 usr +  0.00 sys = 12.36 CPU)
    0while: 14 wallclock secs (11.48 usr +  0.00 sys = 11.48 CPU)
      1for: 13 wallclock secs (11.40 usr +  0.00 sys = 11.40 CPU)
    1redo1: 14 wallclock secs (11.63 usr +  0.00 sys = 11.63 CPU)
    1redo2: 14 wallclock secs (11.54 usr +  0.00 sys = 11.54 CPU)
    1redo3: 15 wallclock secs (12.36 usr +  0.01 sys = 12.37 CPU)
    1while: 14 wallclock secs (11.42 usr +  0.00 sys = 11.42 CPU)

I don't know why the difference in times between the first run and the second...