Memory usage for arrays of 1132766 ints (data derived from some 1kx1k img):
Regular: 76453160B (67.5B/int)
SplFixed: 18898744B (16.7B/int)
In my application, SFA uses 75% less RAM, which is a life-saver.
Speed comparison:
Regular: 449ms
SplFixed (resized before every element): 791ms
SplFixed (fully preallocated): 392ms
SplFixed (preall-d to 1M and then resized): 547ms
Pros and cons:
+ much more efficient RAM-wise
+ a bit faster if max size is known
~ a bit slower if max size is only approximated
- much slower if max size is not known
- cannot be used with most array functions
To sum up:
SplFixedArray is a very good choice for storing giant amount of data, though only as long as you at least roughly know the size and can work without array functions.
