On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 6:29 AM, 7stud -- <bbxx789_05ss / yahoo.com> wrote: > Clement Ow wrote: > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > $options= > > ["2008*", "2008*", "700*", "2008*", "2008*"] > > > > $source= > > %w[C:/movtest/testing > > C:/movtest/testing/new > > U:/movtest/source > > U:/movtest/new > > U:/movtest/new1] > > > > $dest= > > %w[U:/test_1/ > > U:/dest1/ > > U:/dest2/ > > U:/dest3/ > > U:/dest4/] > > > > You have 3 arrays with 5 short strings in them. A character in a string > takes up 1 byte of memory. I don't know exactly what the overhead for > an array is, but it is comparatively tiny--although you never know with > ruby. A well judged statement again.... For Ruby 1.9 the overhead of an array is one long and 4 VALUES, I am not a VM Guru but it would surprise me a lot if a VALUE used more than 4 bytes given their semantic meanings shared flags and klass, the fourth being a pointer to the content. I am sure that someone will correct me if I am wrong but I estimate the overhead of less than 21 bytes. I would guess all your arrays would take up less than 1,000 >yes that seems indeed a save guess.... HTH Robert -- http://ruby-smalltalk.blogspot.com/ --- Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. Ludwig Wittgenstein