Re^4: Detecting if a scalar has a number or string

[tye]

Note that looks_like_number() tells you exactly the same thing, just without all of the overhead. (:

[davido]

For the record, you're absolutely right. Scalar::Util's looks_like_number() is 655% faster than my eval trap fatal warning approach. But for some reason I do get a sort of a kick out of the idea of letting perl (the interpreter) tell me if a scalar is a number, rather than Perl (the script). Consider my solution purely an academic enveavor, and use the module for production code.

The benchmark script:

Read more... (939 Bytes)

The results:

        Rate Seems Looks
Seems 38.8/s    --  -87%
Looks  297/s  665%    --