perl - array of integers using way too much memory?

Question

When I run the following script:

my @arr = [1..5000000];

for($i=0; $i<5000000; $i++) {
        $arr[$i] = $i;
        if($i % 1000000 == 0) {
                    


        

Answer 1

Or, implicitly handling the pack for you, there is Tie::Array::PackedC:

use Tie::Array::PackedC;
# make @arr use $arr_storage for storing packed elements, by default using 'l!' pack format
tie my @arr, 'Tie::Array::PackedC', my $arr_storage;

vec may also be of interest.