[gerikson]

Using cat to redirect the file to /dev/null takes 18s on my machine (a low-end NUC). Just running a noop on the file in Perl (ie. feeding it into a `while (<>)` loop but not acting on the contents) takes ~2 minutes.

1B lines is a lot, and Java ain't a slouch.

[lessbergstein]

Why are you using cat at all? Use a pipe. This isn't hard stuff. Don't use <>, feed the file into a scalar or array. it should only take a few seconds to process a billion lines.

https://www.perl.com/pub/2003/11/21/slurp.html/#:~:text=Anot....

[sobellian]

If it isn't hard, then perhaps you could demonstrate with a complete perl program that you think should beat java.