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

All Perl values are represented internally as perl scalars, which consume way more memory than a simple int. Even if the scalar is only holding an int. Even if the scalar is undef!

As others have suggested, PDL may be something to look at if you really want to work with huge arrays of this sort.