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I have some code using (looking-back … (line-beginning-position)). Doc string of looking-back states that it's better to avoid this function because of slowness. I'm curious will following approach be faster?

(save-excursion
  (goto-char (line-beginning-position))
  (looking-at regexp stuff))
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3
  • It will be faster. But this isn't an equivalent code.
    – abo-abo
    May 27, 2015 at 17:10
  • @abo-abo, yep, it is not. But in my case I believe I can introduce looking-at version easily. Thank you.
    – Geradlus_RU
    May 27, 2015 at 17:14
  • 3
    The biggest performance issue of looking-back is when it has no limit (or a limit that is far away). If you consider (with-temp-buffer (insert (make-string 10000 ?x)) (looking-back "y")) You'll see it is very fast. Now change the regexp to ".*y" instead : it's unbearably slow even though it's clear to the human reader that this can never match.
    – YoungFrog
    May 27, 2015 at 17:40

1 Answer 1

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Definitely. You will especially gain if you just want to test char-before or search backward for a literal string. And if you must use looking-back then try to use a LIMIT argument, if possible.

See Emacs bug #17284 for an example.

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