Benchmarking system calls maybe

README.md

Benchmarking calls to /usr/bin/true on osx with ruby 1.9.3-p484 built on rvm

Calculating -------------------------------------
            backtick        56 i/100ms
              system        61 i/100ms
                open        59 i/100ms
             open |-        41 i/100ms
               open3        72 i/100ms
              thread        51 i/100ms
-------------------------------------------------
            backtick      578.8 (±1.6%) i/s -       2912 in   5.032061s
              system      620.5 (±1.8%) i/s -       3111 in   5.015363s
                open      596.2 (±1.5%) i/s -       3009 in   5.048177s
             open |-      417.2 (±2.9%) i/s -       2091 in   5.015907s
               open3      773.9 (±2.1%) i/s -       3888 in   5.026007s
              thread      469.4 (±12.1%) i/s -       2346 in   5.072437s

bm.rb

require 'benchmark'
require 'benchmark/ips'
require 'open3'
# require 'open4'
ENV['RUBYOPT'] = nil
$VERBOSE = nil

Benchmark.ips do |x|
# Benchmark.bmbm do |x|
  x.report("backtick") do
     `/usr/bin/true`
  end
  x.report("system") do
    system("/usr/bin/true")
  end
  x.report("open") do
    cmd = open("|/usr/bin/true")
    cmd.close
  end
  x.report("open |-") do
    open("|-") do |f|
      system("/usr/bin/true")
    end
  end
  x.report("open3") do
    Open3.popen3("/usr/bin/true")
  end
  x.report("thread") do
    Thread.new do
      system("/usr/bin/true")
    end.join
  end
  # exec
  # warnings
  # x.report("%x") do
  #   %x("/usr/bin/true")
  # end
  # end
  # forks too many processes
  # x.report("open4") do
  #   Open4.popen4("/usr/bin/true")
  # end
  # forks too many processes
  # x.report("popen") do
  #   IO.popen("/usr/bin/true") #{}
  # end
  # forks too many processes
  # x.report("spawn") do
  #   Process.spawn("/usr/bin/true")
  # end
  # x.report("fork") do
  #   Kernel.fork do
  #     Kernel.exec("/usr/bin/true")
  #   end
  # end
  # Trying to figure out Kernel.fork, Kernel.exec, IO.pipe, IO.select
  # x.report("pipe") do
  #   rp, wp = IO.pipe
  #   mesg = "ping "
  #   100.times {
  #     # IO.select follows IO#read.  Not the best way to use IO.select.
  #     rs, ws, = IO.select([rp], [wp])
  #     if r = rs[0]
  #       ret = r.read(5)
  #       print ret
  #       case ret
  #       when /ping/
  #         mesg = "pong\n"
  #       when /pong/
  #         mesg = "ping "
  #       end
  #     end
  #     if w = ws[0]
  #       w.write(mesg)
  #     end
  #   }
  # end
  #  java.lang.Runtime.get_runtime.exec("rvm use foo").get_output_stream.close
end