What is the best way to gunzip files with Perl?

Question

Is there a faster solution than my actual \'zcat\' solution to gunzip files with Perl?

A little benchmark:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;         


        

Answer 1

The last time I tried it, spawning an external gunzip was considerably faster than using a Perl module (just like your benchmarks show). I suspect it's all the method calls involved in tying a filehandle.

I expect <$z> is slower than $z->getline for a similar reason. There's more magic involved in figuring out that the first needs to be translated into the second.