# Newbie question about benchmarking

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-question-about-benchmarking/86650>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [February 24, 2007, 2:30am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-question-about-benchmarking/86650 "2007-02-24T02:30:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Stephen\_E\_Riley](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Stephen\_E\_Riley](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Stephen_E_Riley)\
**Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 2:30am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-question-about-benchmarking/86650/1 "2007-02-24T02:30:25Z")

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Hi,

I’m trying one of Dave T.’ CodeKanta exercises (binary chop) and  
am curious about the benchmarking results, in particular the  
rehearsal/final results for chop and chop1. The relationship is  
consistent over multiple runs of the benchmark.

I have two questions: 1) why the switch in relative position; and 2)  
what might cause the first two ‘chops’ to show such dramatic drops  
between rehearsal/actual runs and the lack of movement for the last  
two ‘chops’.

Regards,

Steve

Rehearsal ------------------------------------------------------  
chop 7.375000 0.016000 7.391000 ( 7.388000)  
chop1 12.406000 0.000000 12.406000 ( 12.433000)  
chop2 0.844000 0.000000 0.844000 ( 0.844000)  
chop3 0.812000 0.000000 0.812000 ( 0.812000)  
-------------------------------------------- total: 21.453000sec

```
                     user system total real

```

chop 1.203000 0.000000 1.203000 ( 1.203000)  
chop1 0.797000 0.000000 0.797000 ( 0.797000)  
chop2 0.844000 0.000000 0.844000 ( 0.843000)  
chop3 0.750000 0.000000 0.750000 ( 0.750000)