>>555
ベンチマークを取ってみた。
Windows XP SP2、ActivePerl 5.8.8
_______________________________________________________________

use Benchmark qw(:all);

my $file = 'jcode.pl'; # 21,876bytes、785行

my $r = timethese( 10000,
{
'local $/' => sub {
open my $fh, $file or die $!;
my $data = do { local $/; <$fh> };
},
'read' => sub {
open my $fh, $file or die $!;
read $fh, my $data, -s $fh;
}
});

cmpthese $r;
____________________________________________________________________________

Benchmark: timing 10000 iterations of local $/, read...
  local $/: 4 wallclock secs ( 2.81 usr + 1.09 sys = 3.91 CPU) @ 2559.51/s (n=10000)
    read: 3 wallclock secs ( 1.77 usr + 1.06 sys = 2.83 CPU) @ 3534.82/s (n=10000)

      Rate   local $/  read
local $/  2560/s    --   -28%
read    3535/s    38%     --