Re: `compare-strings' style question

[tomas@tuxteam.de]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 03:34:51AM -0700, Kevin Rodgers wrote:

[...]

> (when (let ((case-fold-search nil))
> 	(string-match (concat "^" (regexp-quote foo)) bar))
>   ...)
>
>> Thanks -- but I was trying to avoid conjuring up the whole regexp
>> machinery for this task. I admit that this looks less confusing, though.
>
> Perhaps you could enlighten us with some performance measurements?

Originally it was more of an "economy of the tools" principle and not
real concern about (computer) performance. But your question piqued my
curiosity, so here is a firstt shot at that:

  (let ((words
         '("Carl" "Carl's" "Carla" "Carla's" "Carlene" "Carlene's" "Carlin"
           "Carlin's" "Carlo" "Carlo's" "Carlos" "Carlsbad" "Carlsbad's"
           "Carlson" "Carlson's" "Carlton" "Carlton's" "Carly" "Carly's"
           "Carlyle" "Carlyle's" "Carmela" "Carmela's" "Carmella" "Carmella's"
           "Carmelo" "Carmelo's" "Carmen" "Carmen's" "Carmichael" "Carmichael's"
           "Carmine" "Carmine's" "Carnap" "Carnap's" "Carnation" "Carnation's"
           "Carnegie" "Carnegie's" "Carney" "Carney's" "Carnot" "Carnot's"
           "Carol" "Carol's" "Carole" "Carole's" "Carolina")))
    (insert (format "compare-strings: %S\n"
                    (benchmark-run-compiled 10000
                        (mapc (lambda (w)
                                (compare-strings "Carm" 0 3 w 0 3))
                              words))))
    (insert (format "string-match   : %S\n"
                    (benchmark-run-compiled 10000
                        (mapc (lambda (w)
                                (string-match  "^Carm" w))
                              words)))))

  compare-strings: (0.399947 0 0.0)
  string-match   : (0.885371 0 0.0)

  compare-strings: (0.387 0 0.0)
  string-match   : (0.870512 0 0.0)

  compare-strings: (0.35596 0 0.0)
  string-match   : (0.88489 0 0.0)

This is with "benchmark-run" instead of "benchmark-run-compiled":

  compare-strings: (0.61102 1 0.038892999999999955)
  string-match   : (0.980834 1 0.038853999999999944)

  compare-strings: (0.6046680000000001 1 0.03880600000000001)
  string-match   : (1.002827 1 0.03884599999999999)

  compare-strings: (0.608943 1 0.039271)
  string-match   : (0.979522 1 0.03894399999999998)

Thus, compare-strings seems a tad faster, although I don't believe it
does matter very much (bear in mind *I* rigged the benchmark, tho ;-)

I don't know how Emacs handles its regular expressions (whether it
caches the compiled regexp and on which occassions it invalidates its
cache), but possibly your idiom above (string-match (concat "^" ...))
will kill another bunch of CPU cycles. But as I said, peerformance
wasn't my primary concern.

Heck. Let's try. Doing just (concat "^" "Carm") instead of "^Carm"

compiled:

  compare-strings: (0.400415 0 0.0)
  string-match   : (0.891014 0 0.0)

non-compiled:

  compare-strings: (0.6066699999999999 1 0.04038800000000009)
  string-match   : (2.790288 35 1.410207000000001)

Is it the concat? Is it the re-compiling of the regexp? Dunno.

> Another contender:
>
> (let ((foo-len (length foo))
>       (bar-len (length bar)))
>   (cond ((> bar-len foo-len)
> 	 (equal foo (substring bar 0 (1- foo-len))))
> 	((= bar-len foo-len)
> 	 (equal foo bar))
> 	(t nil)))

This doesn't make the code much more readable, I fear.

Thanks
- -- tomás
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFLC6gUBcgs9XrR2kYRAiWgAJ9gUWenOgH6YiVlgrDY4eW2VOrQ0ACfXPK+
wmS8QK1x3CregqNlZa1/eW4=
=f7vF
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----