This version is slower than the Python one

kytta commented 2 years ago

Reproduction Rate

I could reproduce the issue every time I use tldr

Steps to Reproduce

Install the C client for tldr
- in my case, brew install tldr
Install the Python client for tldr
- in my case, pip install tldr
Run both tldrs once, to update indices
Run repeat 5 time tldr grep > /dev/null

Result

C version is about 5 times slower than the Python one

# C version
$ repeat 5 time tldr grep > /dev/null
tldr grep > /dev/null  0,06s user 0,01s system 4% cpu 1,610 total
tldr grep > /dev/null  0,06s user 0,01s system 11% cpu 0,609 total
tldr grep > /dev/null  0,06s user 0,01s system 15% cpu 0,476 total
tldr grep > /dev/null  0,06s user 0,01s system 19% cpu 0,369 total
tldr grep > /dev/null  0,06s user 0,01s system 15% cpu 0,469 total
# average: 0,706

# Python version
$ repeat 5 time ./.venv/bin/tldr grep > /dev/null
./.venv/bin/tldr grep > /dev/null  0,11s user 0,04s system 66% cpu 0,224 total
./.venv/bin/tldr grep > /dev/null  0,08s user 0,02s system 96% cpu 0,103 total
./.venv/bin/tldr grep > /dev/null  0,08s user 0,02s system 95% cpu 0,101 total
./.venv/bin/tldr grep > /dev/null  0,08s user 0,02s system 95% cpu 0,107 total
./.venv/bin/tldr grep > /dev/null  0,09s user 0,02s system 96% cpu 0,120 total
# average: 0,131

Expected Result

I expected, that the C version would be faster than the Python one, since C is a compiled language.

Additional Information

I am using macOS 10.15.7

aphedges commented 2 years ago

I can't reproduce this. For me, the C client is fast enough that time can't display a non-zero value for a single run:

$ time bash -c 'seq 10 | xargs -I % time /usr/local/bin/tldr grep >/dev/null'
        0.01 real         0.00 user         0.00 sys
        0.00 real         0.00 user         0.00 sys
        0.00 real         0.00 user         0.00 sys
        0.00 real         0.00 user         0.00 sys
        0.00 real         0.00 user         0.00 sys
        0.00 real         0.00 user         0.00 sys
        0.00 real         0.00 user         0.00 sys
        0.00 real         0.00 user         0.00 sys
        0.00 real         0.00 user         0.00 sys
        0.00 real         0.00 user         0.00 sys

real    0m0.136s
user    0m0.041s
sys 0m0.055s
$ time bash -c 'seq 10 | xargs -I % time python -m tldr grep >/dev/null'
        0.28 real         0.09 user         0.07 sys
        0.21 real         0.09 user         0.07 sys
        0.21 real         0.09 user         0.07 sys
        0.21 real         0.09 user         0.07 sys
        0.20 real         0.09 user         0.07 sys
        0.21 real         0.10 user         0.07 sys
        0.51 real         0.10 user         0.08 sys
        0.22 real         0.10 user         0.08 sys
        0.80 real         0.10 user         0.08 sys
        0.22 real         0.09 user         0.08 sys

real    0m3.188s
user    0m1.001s
sys 0m0.825s

I am using macOS 11.6.5 on an x86_64 machine. I'm using v1.4.3 of the C client and v3.1.0 of the Python client with Python 3.7.13.

Are you sure that your Python client is not just failing very quickly? Yours seems to take around as long as it takes for my interpreter to start and print an empty line:

$ time bash -c 'seq 10 | xargs -I % time python -c "print()" >/dev/null'
        0.13 real         0.04 user         0.05 sys
        0.13 real         0.04 user         0.05 sys
        0.13 real         0.04 user         0.05 sys
        0.13 real         0.04 user         0.05 sys
        0.13 real         0.04 user         0.05 sys
        0.13 real         0.04 user         0.05 sys
        0.13 real         0.04 user         0.05 sys
        0.13 real         0.04 user         0.05 sys
        0.12 real         0.04 user         0.05 sys
        0.13 real         0.04 user         0.05 sys

real    0m1.384s
user    0m0.435s
sys 0m0.604s

kytta commented 2 years ago

Well, I would know if it were failing when using it, I'm using the tool every day after all :)

I reran the tests using hyperfine — and I get different results now. C version is around 16 times faster 🤔 But I remember it being slower in use!

I guess I really did have some issues with my installation or testing. I'll close the issue since I myself couldn't reproduce it 🤷‍♂️

tldr-pages / tldr-c-client