Re: [boost] serialization performance

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-11-08 08:09:20

bwood <brass_at_[hidden]> writes:

> Hi, Dave,

Hi Brian

> I work on www.webEbenezer.net.  I noticed today that Robert
> Ramey said "So far so good" regarding some performance tests
> he is doing.  You might want to encourage him to consider 
> some of the competition as far as performance.

You should probably be doing that, actually ;-) I'm helpfully
cross-posting this reply to the Boost developers' list, but next time,
please do it yourself so that you get "in the mix" there.  Having
these kinds of reports in the public record, and having people like
you involved in the ensuing discussion, are crucial for the Boost
process.  Thanks again for writing.

> Some recent tests I've done that compare Ebenezer Enterprises 
> and Boost.serialization's performance show the 
> Boost.serialization approach to be 7 to 9 times slower than the 
> Ebenezer Enterprises approach.   I'm using Linux  2.6.12, 
> gcc 4.0.2 (with -O3) and a Boost.serialization library from the 
> release tree.  A test that compared the times to serialize/send 
> a list<int> took  7.4 times longer with Boost than Ebenezer.   
> I timed the following 
> Boost:
>       oArch & lst;    // oArch is a binary_oarchive
>
> Ebenezer:
>       msgs.Send(buffer, lst); // In order to compare apples to apples, 
>                               // I removed a section of code at the end
>
>                               // of the Send function that flushes the
> buffer.
>   
>
> In a second test I added a deque of int...
> Boost:
>       oArch & lst;
>       oArch & dq;            // std::deque<int>  dq;
>
> Ebenezer:
>       msgs.Send(buffer, lst, dq);
>
> In this case Boost took 9.1 times longer than Ebenezer Enterprises 
> approach.   If you want to run these tests with other compilers I 
> think that would be helpful.  I've been warned not to put too much 
> emphasis on numbers from gcc.
>
> Regards,
> Brian Wood

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
www.boost-consulting.com