Optimize scripts

Specify the size of an array in a declaration whenever it’s known

For example, use float $a[42]; instead of float $a[];. All arrays grow as required, so if you know don’t know exactly how many elements an array might hold, but you know a reasonable maximum, use it. Without a size specified, MEL uses a default size of 16 elements for allocating memory for arrays. For example, use

float $a[50]; $a=`someCmd`;

where someCmd would typically return less than 50 things. For the same reason, use explicit size when initializing arrays. For example, use

float $a[15] = {1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15};

Using explicit declaration will produce faster executables

When MEL has complete type information at compile time, it can produce executables which use functions specific to these data types to run the script. If MEL cannot determine a variable’s type at compile time, it must defer the type checking to runtime. This is an overhead which is avoided if type information is known at compile time.