Re: [boost] [xpressive] Performance Tuning?

Subject: Re: [boost] [xpressive] Performance Tuning?
From: OvermindDL1 (overminddl1_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-07-28 06:15:58

On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 3:11 AM, Edward Grace<ej.grace_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>
> On 28 Jul 2009, at 08:16, OvermindDL1 wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 10:34 PM, OvermindDL1<overminddl1_at_[hidden]>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 6:17 PM, OvermindDL1<overminddl1_at_[hidden]>
>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> /* snip */
>>>
>>> I did a quick first test at work, just a quick compile, got some
>>> errors, and quite frankly I do not know how this compiled in gcc
>>> either.  First error is:
>>> 1>r:\programming_projects\spirit_price\price_parsing\main.cpp(545) :
>>> error C2373: '_input' : redefinition; different type modifiers
>>> 1>
>>>  r:\programming_projects\spirit_price\price_parsing\main.cpp(544)
>>> : see declaration of '_input'
>>>
>>> The relevant code is:
>>>  template <class T>
>>>  T
>>>  extract(char const * & _input, char const * _description,
>>>     std::string const & _input);
>>>
>>> Why do the first and last function params have the same name (_input)?
>>>  And which one is the real input?  Based upon line 566, I changed the
>>> last _input to _value and that error (and one other) is now gone.
>>> Hmm, actually the third error is gone too.  Now I am getting lots of
>>> Warnings (as errors since I by default have warnings treated as
>>> errors) about double to int64_t cast, both in  your normal code on
>>> line 730
>>>
>>> Also, I added a:
>>>  tests.reserve(450000);
>>> right before the load_tests call, that changed the load_tests time
>>> from like 10 seconds to about 2 seconds on my system.
>>>
>>> Also, why are you using time(0), that only has second accuracy?
>>>
>>
>> The mailing list seems to be taking a very long while to send the
>> message, so here it is again, but the attachment in the main.cpp file
>> only, not the test_inputs.dat file (which, when zipped, is over
>> 350kb).  So get the test_inputs.dat from the link in the post prior to
>> mine, and use the main.cpp that is attached to this post.  Here is the
>> message I sent as well, perhaps it will come through eventually:
>>
>> Okay, I basically just copy/pasted my thread-safe version of my spirit
>> parser over and ran it, it returned bad parse with like 13/9 or
>> something like that.  According to the documentation in the original
>> cpp file, only "1", "1 2/3", or "1.2" are valid, not "2/3", so I
>> changed it to support that and ran it again, it parsed successfully
>> with all numbers in your tests matching successfully.  Here is what it
>> printed, using the horribly inaccurate time function:
>> Testing string-based parsing
>> Testing Xpressive-based parsing
>> Testing Spirit-based parsing
>> string parsing: 8s
>> xpressive parsing: 33s
>> spirit parsing: 6s
>>
>> If you do not mind, I am going to add a millisecond accuracy testing
>> framework (test.hpp from the boost examples) to the file and change
>> all the nasty time calls to it for a more reliable reading.
>
> OvermindDL1 - does my timer functionality not work?  Can you try using that
> instead?  If it's no good please let me know - and I can improve it.
>
> The whole point of the timer code is to obtain reliable confidence bounds
> for precisely this kind of optimisation application in an efficient manner.
>
> It hurts seeing absolute times used to compare things without any idea of
> their precision or accuracy!

I have not seen how to use yours yet though, not actually looked at
the code.  To be honest, I am just lazy and using what I know involves
one search-and-replace, and two lines of code changed.  >.>

I will make another set with your ejg timer now since I have time for
once to play a bit.  :)

For now, I made one using the high_resolution_timer.hpp that comes
with boost for examples and benchmarks and such.  Attached is a zip of
main.cpp and the high_resolution_timer.hpp (not the test data, it is
too big to attach quickly).  Here are the results on my computer:
Testing string-based parsing
Testing Xpressive-based parsing
Testing Spirit-based parsing
string parsing: 7.2406s
xpressive parsing: 29.2227s
spirit parsing: 5.07125s

Yea, a lot more accurate, but still not good for direct comparison
with other people like the ejg timer is, I shall make a modification
with that next.  :)