Benchmarking Ruby Regexes: Lazy Versus Not

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        // A benchmark for figuring out which is faster -- a lazy match (*?) or a negated character class ([^x]*)

require 'benchmark'
include Benchmark

LOOP_COUNT = 100
STRING = []
STRING << "ab" * 5_000
STRING << ("a"* 9_999) + "b"
STRING << "a" * 10_000
STRING << "b" * 10_000

def do_regex_lazy(i)
	STRING[i].match(/a.*?b/)
	nil
end

def do_regex_not(i)
	STRING[i].match(/a[^b]*b/)
	nil
end

def hr
 puts "-" * 40
end

# This will take a while to run on a normal PC.

bm(12) do |test|
	hr
	test.report("short lazy match:") {LOOP_COUNT.times {do_regex_lazy 0}}
	test.report("short  not match:") {LOOP_COUNT.times { do_regex_not 0}}
	hr
	test.report("long lazy match:") {LOOP_COUNT.times {do_regex_lazy 1}}
	test.report("long  not match:") {LOOP_COUNT.times { do_regex_not 1}}
	hr
	test.report("missing lazy match:") {LOOP_COUNT.times {do_regex_lazy 2}}
	test.report("missing  not match:") {LOOP_COUNT.times { do_regex_not 2}}
	hr
	test.report("missing lazy match 2:") {LOOP_COUNT.times {do_regex_lazy 3}}
	test.report("missing  not match 2:") {LOOP_COUNT.times { do_regex_not 3}}
	hr
	test.report("lazy (all):") {LOOP_COUNT.times {4.times {|i| do_regex_lazy i}}}
	test.report("not  (all):") {LOOP_COUNT.times {4.times {|i|  do_regex_not i}}}
end	

Results:

                  user     system      total        real
----------------------------------------
short lazy match:  0.000000   0.000000   0.000000 (  0.000244)
short  not match:  0.000000   0.000000   0.000000 (  0.000232)
----------------------------------------
long lazy match:  0.050000   0.000000   0.050000 (  0.052447)
long  not match:  0.050000   0.000000   0.050000 (  0.047669)
----------------------------------------
missing lazy match:254.640000   0.140000 254.780000 (255.988425)
missing  not match:224.580000   0.130000 224.710000 (226.142944)
----------------------------------------
missing lazy match 2:  0.010000   0.000000   0.010000 (  0.006238)
missing  not match 2:  0.000000   0.000000   0.000000 (  0.005571)
----------------------------------------
    

Tags:
• benchmark
• lazy
• negated
• regex
• Ruby