Bug#543477: perl-base: perl -e 'use Getopt::Long; ' takes ~1 second on an openmoko neo freerunner

[Timo Juhani Lindfors]

Package: perl-base
Version: 5.10.0-25
Severity: wishlist

This is a wishlist bug. I wish I could parse long options with perl on
an openmoko neo freerunner faster. I do not have much insight on
profiling perl but I thought I should report this issue here so that
other people are aware of it.

Currently Getopt::Long is takes about four times longer to start than
Getopt::Std and totals to about one second:

lindi at ginger:~$ time perl -e 'use Getopt::Long;'

real    0m1.004s
user    0m0.865s
sys     0m0.120s

lindi at ginger:~$ time perl -e 'use Getopt::Std;'

real    0m0.228s
user    0m0.150s
sys     0m0.075s

This is very unfortunate as it forces one to either use cryptic short
options, suffer significant slowdown or resolt to writing a shell
script that can use the fast getopt binary:

lindi at ginger:~$ time getopt -o v --long verbose -- "--verbose"
 --verbose --

real    0m0.051s
user    0m0.000s
sys     0m0.040s



-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: armel (armv4tl)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.29-GTA02_lindi-andy-tracking-mokodev (PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=fi_FI (charmap=ISO-8859-1)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages perl-base depends on:
ii  dpkg                         1.15.3.1+b3 Debian package management system
ii  libc6                        2.9-25      GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libgcc1                      1:4.4.1-2   GCC support library

perl-base recommends no packages.

Versions of packages perl-base suggests:
ii  perl                          5.10.0-25  Larry Wall's Practical Extraction 

-- no debconf information