Scala Micro-Benchmarking Template

This is an SBT template project for creating micro benchmarks for scala code snippets. It's not much more than a simple wrapper around Caliper, an open-source library for properly running benchmark code on the JVM (written by some guys at Google).

Manually writing benchmarks for the JVM that actually measure what you intend to measure is much harder than it initially appears. There are quite a few rules you need to keep in mind, so it's best to rely on a framework that takes care of the details and let's you focus on the code relevant to your application. Caliper provides just this framework and this project makes it easily accessible for Scala developers.

How to create your own Scala micro-benchmark

1. Git-clone this repository:

    $ git clone git://github.com/ngerhart/scala-benchmarking-template.git my-benchmark
   

2. Change directory into your clone:

    $ cd my-benchmark
   

3. Launch SBT:

    $ sbt
   

4. Get dependencies:

    > update
   

5. Compile the template code:

    > compile
   

6. Run the existing benchmark:

    > run
   

7. Start hacking on src/main/scala/org/example/Benchmark.scala

As a simple example the project already contains a small benchmark testing the performance of foreaching over a Scala Array against a simple while loop as well as a specialized, custom for loop replacement implementation. In order to run your own benchmark code simply replace the respectively marked code snippets with your own.