gistfile1.rb

require 'rubygems'
require 'nokogiri'
require 'benchmark'

puts Nokogiri.uses_libxml?

orig_doc = Nokogiri::XML::Document.new
root = Nokogiri::XML::Node.new "employees", orig_doc
orig_doc.root = root

["Margareth", "John", "Aaron", "Mike", "Sergio"].each do |name|
  [22, 25, 28, 31, 34].each do |age|
    ["programmer", "manager", "nothing, actually"].each do |job|
      employee_node = Nokogiri::XML::Node.new "employee", orig_doc
      name_node = Nokogiri::XML::Node.new "name", orig_doc
      name_node.content = name
      age_node = Nokogiri::XML::Node.new "age", orig_doc
      age_node.content = age
      job_node = Nokogiri::XML::Node.new "job", orig_doc
      job_node.content = job
      employee_node << name_node
      employee_node << age_node
      employee_node << job_node
      root << employee_node
    end
  end
end
doc1 = orig_doc.dup(1)
doc2 = orig_doc.dup(1)

office = Nokogiri::XML::Node.new "office", doc1
state = Nokogiri::XML::Node.new "state", doc1
state.content = "Some state"
office << state
other_data = Nokogiri::XML::Node.new "other_data", doc2

frag1 = Nokogiri::XML::DocumentFragment.new doc1
frag1 << office
frag1 << other_data

office = Nokogiri::XML::Node.new "office", doc2
state = Nokogiri::XML::Node.new "state", doc2
state.content = "Some state"
office << state
other_data = Nokogiri::XML::Node.new "other_data", doc2

Benchmark.bm do |b|
  
  b.report "with fragment" do
    500.times do
      doc = doc1.dup(1)
      doc.search('//employee').each do |node|
        node << frag1.dup(1)
      end
    end
  end

  b.report "without fragment" do
    500.times do
      doc = doc1.dup(1)
      doc.search('//employee').each do |node|
        node << office.dup(1)
        node << other_data.dup(1)
      end
    end
  end
end