[NTLUG:Discuss] OT Perl vs C question

[Albert Modderkolk]

Probably Perl will produce these reports a month earlier but a second 
later...

Ciao, Albert

Fred James wrote:
> All
> I have a multi part data to report processing project
> (1) get some data (flat files produced by SQL queries)
> (2) process the data (dump it all into array(s), consolidating and 
> totaling on the fly)
> (3) produce reports (back through the array(s), a few final 
> calculations, formatting, and output formated report(s))
> 
> I am considering Perl because it seems to have the nice feature of 
> unlimited arrays without declaring them and allocating space (is that 
> true?)
> 
> So, my question:  In a moderate volume data processing project, say 
> reading 7 flat files of 3 to 7 fields each, and > 500,000 records each, 
> and doing something like steps 2 and 3 (above), how does Perl compare to 
> C in terms of speed?
> 
> Thank you in advance for any help you may be able to offer
> Regards
> Fred James
>