Re^3:Hamming Distance Between 2 Strings - Fast(est) Way?

[BrowserUk]

I'm not sure that $k, $l are any more meaningful than $_[0], $_[1] and you pay a small performance penalty for obtaining those names.

Does $diff really capture what it is naming? I've used $xor or $mask for that in the past, but I wonder if it isn't best left unnamed.

I don't see any purpose in naming the return value, just to return it. Better to say return <EXPR>; and give the function a proper name like hammingDistance() and allow it to name the return value.

While using tr/\0//c produces the same result as length - tr/\0/\0/, the major difference is that the former modifies the string being inspected, deleting the chars counted, where the latter does not. It just counts.

On the short strings in the OP this is insignificant. But the technique works for any length strings, and as DNA strings can get very large indeed, the difference then becomes very significant.

Overall, I prefer my version to yours, but each to their preference :)

[Roy Johnson]

If I were writing it from scratch, I'd name things differently. I used the names the OP did, so that he could see the correspondence. I added a parenthetical explanation to my original post to make that clear.

I wasn't going to make a new reply, but I had to correct your mistaken notion that tr deletes things when it doesn't have the /d option appended.

[BrowserUk]

Of course you are right, nothing is deleted without /d.

However, the "count the stars" mode does seem to be consistantly around 10% quicker?

$s = "\0\1" x 10000;;

cmpthese -1, { 
    A=> q[ $n1 = $s =~ tr[\0][\0] ], 
    B=> q[ $n2 = $s =~ tr[\0][]c  ] 
}; 


     Rate   B   A
B 23522/s  -- -9%
A 25935/s 10%  --

print "$n1 : $n2";;
10000 : 10000