Does constants and variables slow down script a lot?

[colafrysen]

Just wondering, how much does variables and constants eat memory and CPU, and also, does it have any other effects like slowing overall performance down?

The thing is that I want to include the whole periodic system into my run prompt script, so that you can make chemistry calculations by writing for example "M(Cl)" which equals 35.453.

The problem is that I'll need to declare 118 constants in my script, since i want a standalone au3 (and i think that reading from a file is slower)

So do you guys think that its going to be a big loss in performance or is AutoIt built so well that it doesn't really matter?

(The reason a am asking is that I don't want to create all the variables if I know its worthless)

[Jos]

I do not think you will notice any difference when you define 118 constants, but why not simply use 1 array variable?

Jos

[colafrysen]

I do not think you will notice any difference when you define 118 constants, but why not simply use 1 array variable?

Jos

Well an array would be ok if the atom weights would be defined by atom number, but now i want to use the atom name, the function as it looks now is like this: (From ALIBI Run)

$NOReplacements = 5 ;The number of replacements to be done in the "_StringUseVars" Function, this must be same as in the $Replacements array
Dim $Replacements[$NOReplacements][2] = [["pi", '(3.14159265358979)'],["e", '(2.71828)'],["u", '(1.660539*10^-27)'],['NA', '(6.022142*10^23)'],[',', '.']]; the replacements to be done in the "_StringUseVars" Function

Func _StringUseVars($SUV_Start, $SUV_Amount = "", $SUV_ARRAY = "NONE")

    If $SUV_ARRAY <> "NONE" And IsArray($SUV_ARRAY) = 1 Then

        $SUV_MAINSTRING = $SUV_Start

        For $SUV_C = 0 To $SUV_Amount - 1 Step 1

            $SUV_C_T = $SUV_ARRAY[$SUV_C][0]
            $SUV_C_R = $SUV_ARRAY[$SUV_C][1]

            $SUV_MAINSTRING = StringReplace($SUV_MAINSTRING, $SUV_C_T, '' & $SUV_C_R & '')
        Next
        $SUV_RETURN = Execute($SUV_MAINSTRING)
        Dim $RETURN[2]
        $RETURN[0] = $SUV_MAINSTRING
        $RETURN[1] = $SUV_RETURN
        Return $RETURN

    EndIf
EndFunc   ;==>_StringUseVars

So i plan to implement it into that function (not by adding 118 more replacements though)

Edited May 25, 2009 by colafrysen