Ruby serialization/deserialization

ruby-serializaton-test.rb

=begin

Test various ruby serializers.

*** LOCAL GEMS ***

bert (1.1.2)
bson_ext (1.6.1)
json (1.6.5)
msgpack (0.4.6)
ox (1.5.3)
yajl-ruby (1.1.0)

ruby -v
ruby 1.8.7 (2011-12-28 patchlevel 357) [i686-darwin11.0.0]

=end

# in rails 2.3.3 console:

require 'bson'
require 'bert'
require 'ox'
require 'yajl'
require 'msgpack'
game = {:deck=>"qs|js|10d|6s|6d|10h|7s|6c|7h|kc|jd|ad|ks|8c|10c|8s|9d|qh|qc|kd|jh|jc|as|ac", :players=>{:current=>:human, :players=>[{:cards=>"9c|ah|10s|6h", :player_id=>:human, :ai_brain=>nil, :active=>true}, {:cards=>"7c|kh|qd", :player_id=>:ai4, :ai_brain=>{:level=>4, :ai_memory=>{:can_win=>nil}}, :active=>true}], :attacker=>:ai4, :finished=>[], :defender=>:human}, :bet=>15, :table=>["7d|8d", "8h|9h", "9s"], :win_status=>nil, :trump_suit=>"c", :last_move_type=>:attack, :discard=>"", :active=>true}
game2 = {"last_move_type"=>"attack", "discard"=>"", "deck"=>"qs|js|10d|6s|6d|10h|7s|6c|7h|kc|jd|ad|ks|8c|10c|8s|9d|qh|qc|kd|jh|jc|as|ac", "trump_suit"=>"c", "win_status"=>nil, "active"=>true, "players"=>{"defender"=>"human", "finished"=>[], "attacker"=>"ai4", "players"=>[{"cards"=>"9c|ah|10s|6h", "active"=>true, "ai_brain"=>nil, "player_id"=>"human"}, {"cards"=>"7c|kh|qd", "active"=>true, "ai_brain"=>{"level"=>4, "ai_memory"=>{"can_win"=>nil}}, "player_id"=>"ai4"}], "current"=>"human"}, "bet"=>15, "table"=>["7d|8d", "8h|9h", "9s"]}

n = 5_000
Benchmark.bm do |x|
  x.report('marshal') { n.times { Marshal.load(Marshal.dump(game)) } }
  x.report('msgpack') { n.times { MessagePack.unpack(MessagePack.pack(game2)) } }
  x.report('bson   ') { n.times { BSON.deserialize(BSON.serialize(game)) } }
  x.report('bert   ') { n.times { BERT.decode(BERT.encode(game)) } }

  x.report('json   ') { n.times { JSON.parse(game2.to_json) } }
  x.report('json2  ') { n.times { ActiveSupport::JSON.decode(game2.to_json) } }
  x.report('yajl   ') { n.times { Yajl::Parser.parse(Yajl::Encoder.encode(game2)) } }

  x.report('yaml   ') { n.times { YAML.load(YAML.dump(game)) } }

  x.report('ox     ') { n.times { Ox.load(Ox.dump(game), :mode => :object) } }
end

=begin

Results:

      user     system      total        real
marshal  0.390000   0.000000   0.390000 (  0.393153)
msgpack  0.210000   0.000000   0.210000 (  0.160727)
bson     2.340000   0.000000   2.340000 (  2.343516)
bert     5.450000   0.030000   5.480000 (  5.469525)

json     4.230000   0.010000   4.240000 (  4.249227)
json2    7.490000   0.020000   7.510000 (  7.515217)
yajl     0.320000   0.010000   0.330000 (  0.320377)

yaml    14.880000   0.150000  15.030000 ( 15.025576)

ox       1.850000   0.000000   1.850000 (  1.858068)

Conclusion:
for binary serialization msgpack gem is interesting, but it doesn`t support complex types (even symbols) so generally marshal is the best for that.
for json - yajl gem is very cool.
for yaml & xml I have tested just one gem for each, so - unknown.

=end