set-vs-array.rb

require 'benchmark'
require 'set'

n = 100000
bench = {}


set = Set.new
array = Array.new
rand= Random.new
for i in 1..100 do
  num = rand()
  set << num
  array << num
end

test = 10.times.map{ Random.rand() } 

puts "array contents: "
puts array.to_s

puts "array size = #{array.size}, set size= #{set.size}"
puts "test: " << test.to_s


Benchmark.bm(2) do |x|
  name = "array"
  bench[name] = x.report(name) do
    n.times do
     test.each do |t|
       array.include?(t)
     end
    end
  end
  
  name = "set"
  bench[name] = x.report(name) do
    n.times do
     test.each do |t|
       set.include?(t)
     end
    end
  end
end

Can you post a sample out of this to get a feeling of the comparison without running it? Thanks!

    user     system      total        real

array 5.700000 0.010000 5.710000 ( 5.706463)
set 0.300000 0.000000 0.300000 ( 0.303586)

so almost 20 times faster for me (ruby 1.9.2p320 OSX mavericks 2.66 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo)