# Ruby Versions and other languages performane comparison

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-versions-and-other-languages-performane-comparison/98152>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [July 12, 2006, 8:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-versions-and-other-languages-performane-comparison/98152 "2006-07-12T20:11:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![stephanwehner](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/0ea827/32.png) [@stephanwehner](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/stephanwehner)\
**Post date:** [July 12, 2006, 8:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-versions-and-other-languages-performane-comparison/98152/1 "2006-07-12T20:11:38Z")

</div>

I ran this simple ruby script

max = 5000  
z = 0  
1.upto(max) do |x|  
1.upto(max) do |y|  
z = (x+y-z) % 32000  
end  
end  
puts 'Got z = ’ + z.to\_s

on different ruby implementations and translations to bash, bc, Java,  
perl, python and C. It just does 25 million additions, subtractions and  
modulo computations. No real memory handling is involved.

Results on an Intel Pentium 4 CPU 3.00GHz.

2898 seconds – GNU bash, version 3.1.7(1)

112 seconds – bc 1.06

33 seconds – ruby 1.8.4 (2005-12-24) [i386-linux]

20 seconds – ruby 1.9.0 (2006-07-07) [i686-linux]

19 seconds – Python 2.4.2

14 seconds – perl v5.8.8

10 seconds – ruby-yarv / ruby 2.0.0 (Base: Ruby 1.9.0 2006-04-08)  
[i686-linux]  
YARVCore 0.4.0 Rev: 510 (2006-07-06) [opts:]

5 seconds – ruby-yarv / ruby 2.0.0 (Base: Ruby 1.9.0 2006-04-08)  
[i686-linux]  
YARVCore 0.4.1 Rev: 519 (2006-07-12) [opts: [direct threaded code]  
[inline method cache] ]

0.8 seconds – java version “1.5.0\_07”  
Java™ 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.5.0\_07-b03)  
Java HotSpot™ Client VM (build 1.5.0\_07-b03, mixed mode, sharing)

0.4 seconds – gcc (GCC) 4.1.0 20060304 (Red Hat 4.1.0-3)

0.2 seconds – same gcc with -O3 compilation flag

So that is nice. ruby-yarv 0.4.1 beats perl 5 by a factor of about 3.  
(Note: ruby-yarv 0.4.1 just released yesterday)

Easy to remember:

30 seconds (3 units): ruby 1.8  
20 seconds (2 units): ruby 1.9  
10 seconds (1 unit) : ruby (yarv 0.4.0)  
5 seconds (0.5 unit): ruby (yarv 0.4.1)  
less than 1 second : C,Java

Stephan

# bash script

#!/bin/bash  
let z=0  
x=1  
while [$x -lt 5001]  
do  
y=1  
while [$y -lt 5001]  
do  
z=$[( $x + $y - $z ) % 32000]  
y=$[$y+1]  
done  
x=$[$x + 1]  
done

echo “Got $z”

# bc script

z = 0  
for(x=1; x\<=5000; x++)  
for (y=1; y\<=5000; y++)  
z = (x + y - z) % 32000  
done  
done  
print "Result is ", z, “\n”

# python script (using max=5001 and range function)

max = 5001  
z = 0  
for x in range(1,max):  
for y in range(1,max):  
z = (x+y-z)%32000

print 'Got z = ', z

# Perl Code

#!/usr/bin/perl

$max = 5000;  
$z = 0;  
for ($x = 1 ; $x \<= $max; $x++)  
{  
for ($y=1; $y \<= $max; $y++)  
{  
$z = ($x + $y - $z) % 32000;  
}  
}  
print “Got $z\n”;

# Java Code

public class m  
{  
public static void main(String []argv)  
{  
int max = 5000;  
int z = 0;  
int x,y;  
for (x = 1; x\<=max;x++)  
for (y = 1; y\<=max;y++)  
{  
z = (x+y-z) % 32000;  
}  
System.out.println("Got " + z);  
}  
}

# C Code

#include “stdio.h”  
int main(int argc, char \*\*argv)  
{  
int max = 5000;  
int z = 0;  
int x,y;  
for (x = 1; x\<=max;x++)  
for (y = 1; y\<=max;y++)  
{  
z = (x+y-z) % 32000;  
}  
printf(“Got %d\n”, z);  
return 0;  
}

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![stephanwehner](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/0ea827/32.png) [@stephanwehner](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/stephanwehner)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 2:43am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-versions-and-other-languages-performane-comparison/98152/2 "2006-07-13T02:43:37Z")

</div>

On Wed, 12 Jul 2006 20:11:53 +0200, Stephan W.  
[removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> 5 seconds – ruby-yarv / ruby 2.0.0 (Base: Ruby 1.9.0 2006-04-08)  
> [i686-linux]  
> YARVCore 0.4.1 Rev: 519 (2006-07-12) [opts: [direct threaded code]  
> [inline method cache] ]

Here are the results with Ruby2CExtension (HEAD revision, not 0.1.0) on  
a  
Pentium M 1.5 GHz:

$ ruby -v  
ruby 1.8.4 (2005-12-24) [i686-linux]

$ time ruby test.rb  
Got z = 20000

real 0m31.163s  
user 0m30.829s  
sys 0m0.056s

$ rb2cx test.rb

$ time ruby -r test.so -e “”  
Got z = 20000

real 0m11.980s  
user 0m11.824s  
sys 0m0.021s

And it is even faster with while loops:

$ cat test\_while.rb  
max = 5000  
z = x = 0  
while (x+=1) \<= max  
y = 0  
while (y+=1) \<= max  
z = (x+y-z) % 32000  
end  
end  
puts 'Got z = ’ + z.to\_s

$ time ruby test\_while.rb  
Got z = 20000

real 0m35.067s  
user 0m34.705s  
sys 0m0.059s

$ rb2cx test\_while.rb

$ time ruby -r test\_while.so -e “”  
Got z = 20000

real 0m5.075s  
user 0m5.019s  
sys 0m0.015s

Dominik