How does source filters affect performance or memory usage?

Source filters in Perl are a powerful feature that allows developers to modify the source code at compile time. However, their use can have implications for performance and memory consumption.

When source filters are applied, the time to compile the code may increase due to the additional overhead of processing the code transformations. This can lead to slower startup times for scripts that rely heavily on filters. Additionally, if the filters create large intermediate representations or require significant memory for processing, this can further impact memory usage.

Below is an example of a simple source filter that manipulates the code:

#!/usr/bin/perl use Filter::Util::Call; FILTER_ONLY sub FILTER { my $text = $_; $text =~ s/Hello/Hi/g; # Replaces 'Hello' with 'Hi' return $text; } print "Hello World!"; # This will output "Hi World!"

Source Filters Perl Performance Memory Usage Code Transformation