$ time php -r '$a=array_fill(0,100000,"test");while(array_shift($a)){}'
real 0m10.238s
user 0m10.238s
sys 0m0.000s
$ time perl -e 'my @a=("test") x 100000;while(shift(@a)){}'
real 0m0.027s
user 0m0.027s
sys 0m0.000s
$ time node -e 'a=Array(100000).fill("test");while(a.shift()){}'
real 0m1.350s
user 0m1.343s
sys 0m0.011s
Interesting side effect of PHP's magicfull array, which is an array/vector, a linked list and a dictionary/hashmap in a single data structure and in that case copies all elements on each shift into the new location to keep the indexes starting at zero. If you break up the "array", say with an `unset($a[0]);` after the array_fill, which tells that you don't want "array" behavior, it becomes fast but all elements keep their original index instead of being moved forward.
But a tradeoff in that design is it still has to keep track of keys and update them if you remove stuff from the start of the array. Adding and removing elements at the end is very fast, though.
That seems like some kind of local fitness minimum in the space of design choices. Even though there certainly are worse choices one could make, I couldn't imagine anything much worse than that would even stand up to any sort of use.
Well, I’m doing this for fun, mostly in an illustrative manner. I’m not getting paid for this, nor is anyone reviewing my work. So thanks for volunteering, though your critical analysis could be more constructive.
As to the typos, I suspect it comes from the WordPress editor just being its weird self and perhaps me starting to type in the wrong place, or Grammarly updating the wrong thing. Who knows, but it’s not in the markdown version of this draft.
I also wonder what the purpose of wrapping native PHP array mutation in an object is and what overhead that introduces.
I'm with you on being kind in code reviews but one of the canonical examples of sticky bad PHP code is the addslashes top answer on SO for preventing SQL injection. It stayed there for years/decades and hundreds if not thousands of junior devs copied and pasted it.
So there's some risk when we share code that Google can index and possibly elevate.
I think consulting an algorithms book first would give a more formal example that you could work from.
> purpose of wrapping native PHP array mutation in an object is and what overhead that introduces.
The purpose is to illustrate what we are doing and setting the stage for later implementations. The overhead is practically unmeasurable unless we are filling the object table with these things (we are not).
Property lookup and function calls are pretty darn fast in PHP, especially with JIT enabled.