MicroBench

gem install micro_bench

Why ?

Ruby Benchmark module is nice but it uses blocks. We see 2 problems to it :

• if we want to instrument a snippet of code, it breaks git history,
• variables declared in the benchmark block cannot be used subsequently.

Let's say you want to output the duration of method_1 from :

foo = method_1
method_2(foo)

With Benchmark, we would write something like :

foo = nil
duration = Benchmark.realtime do
  foo = method_1
end
puts "Method 1 duration : #{duration} seconds"
method_2(foo)

With MicroBench, it will look like this :

MicroBench.start
foo = method_1
puts "Method 1 duration : #{MicroBench.duration} seconds"
method_2(foo)

Project maturity

This has been running in production at Klaxit for some months now, but it is still a young library. API may be subject to breaking changes on MINOR versions (but not on PATCH versions).

Install

gem install micro_bench

or in Bundler:

gem "micro_bench"

Usage

Basic usage

require "micro_bench"

MicroBench.start

MicroBench.duration
# 1.628093000501394

MicroBench.duration
# 2.999483000487089

MicroBench.stop
# true

MicroBench.duration
# 5.4341670004651

MicroBench.duration
# 5.4341670004651

Named benchmarks

require "micro_bench"

MicroBench.start("timer1")

MicroBench.stop("timer1")

MicroBench.duration("timer1")
# 1.628093000501394

Multiple starts

Calling .start multiple times with the same bench_id (or none) will cause a "restart" of the given benchmark.

Thread safety

A benchmark is tied to a thread, ensuring that MicroBench is thread-safe. At the same time, it doesn't allow to share a benchmark between multiple threads.

Methods isolation

A benchmark is tied to its calling method so the following code will output 2 separated durations for method_1 and method_2. This prevent collisions when using MicroBench in a large codebase.

def method_1
  MicroBench.start
  method_2
  # Do something
  MicroBench.stop
  puts "method_1 duration : #{MicroBench.duration}"
end

def method_2
  MicroBench.start
  # Do something
  MicroBench.stop
  puts "method_2 duration : #{MicroBench.duration}"
end

method_1

Configuration

You can configure a bit MicroBench to have an even simpler time using it afterwards. Here's how:

MicroBench.configure do |config|
  config.formatter = ->(duration) { "#{duration.round} seconds" }
end

MicroBench.start
sleep 2
MicroBench.duration == "2 seconds"

There are some default formatters that you can set:

id	result	description
default	722.327823832	the raw original float, for computation
simple	722.33	rounds to 2 digits
mmss	"12:02.328"	Easy to understand, lossless and compact
human	"12 minutes and 2 seconds"	For humans, clutters logs

To use one of those, simply write config.formatter = :simple instead of a lambda.

Versioning

We use SemVer for versioning. For the versions available, see the tags on this repository.

While still in beta (before 1.0.0), API may be subject to breaking changes on MINOR versions (but not on PATCH versions).

Authors

See the list of contributors who participated in this project.

License

Please see LICENSE