Performance comparison of Ruby's YAML vs Marshal

performance_of_yaml_vs_marshal.rb

require 'benchmark'
require 'yaml'

def encode(msg, format)
  case format
  when :yaml
    str = msg.to_yaml
  when :binary
    str = Marshal.dump(msg)
  end
  str.gsub!("\n", '--\\n')
  str
end

def decode(str, format)
  case format
  when :yaml
    YAML.load(str)
  when :binary
    Marshal.load(str)
  end
  str.gsub!('--\\n', "\n")
end

SAMPLES = 1000
obj = {:test => "me"}

Benchmark.bm do |r|
  r.report("Marshal") do
    SAMPLES.times do
      decode(encode(obj, :binary), :binary)
    end
  end
  r.report("YAML") do
    SAMPLES.times do
      decode(encode(obj, :yaml), :yaml)
    end
  end
end

# Results
#           user      system    total     real
# Marshal   0.020000  0.000000  0.020000  (0.025426)
# YAML      0.210000  0.010000  0.220000  (0.218788)