3 Substring methods benchmark

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

my $number='12345678';
my ($first,$second);
for my $i (1..10_000_000) {
    if( $number =~ /^(\d{3}(\d{5}))$/ ) {
        $first=$1;
        $second=$2;
    }
}
time perl reg.pl

real	0m14.066s
user	0m13.974s
sys	0m0.012s
============================================================
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

my $number='12345678';
my ($first,$second);
for my $i (1..10_000_000) {
    ($first, $second)=unpack('a3a5', $number);
}

time perl unpack.pl

real	0m9.427s
user	0m9.321s
sys	0m0.016s
============================================================
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

my $number='12345678';
my ($first,$second);
for my $i (1..10_000_000) {
    $first=substr($number, 0, 3);
    $second=substr($number, 3, 5);
}

time perl substr.pl

real	0m5.945s
user	0m5.846s
sys	0m0.017s

Seems the winner is the good old substr routine.

Using mysql transaction

There are times when mysql tables need to be truncated (or certain rows need to be removed) before new records are inserted, transaction statement should be used to ensure data integrity.

Example:

// blah blah establish mysql connection

mysql_query('START TRANSACTION');
$res1=mysql_query('TRUNCATE TABLE tbl_test');

// insert new rows into tbl_test, if all went well
$res2=true;   // or false if something goes wrong

If ( $res1 && $res2 ) {
    mysql_query('COMMIT');
} else {
    mysql_query('ROLLBACK');
}

// blah blah close connection

Note: transaction feature is only available when InnoDB engine is used.