NAME
POE::Devel::Benchmarker - Benchmarking POE's performance ( acts more
like a smoker )
SYNOPSIS
apoc@apoc-x300:~$ cd poe-benchmarker
apoc@apoc-x300:~/poe-benchmarker$ perl -MPOE::Devel::Benchmarker -e 'benchmark()'
ABSTRACT
This package of tools is designed to benchmark POE's performace across
different configurations. The current "tests" are:
Events
posts: This tests how long it takes to post() N times
dispatches: This tests how long it took to dispatch/deliver all the
posts enqueued in the "posts" test
single_posts: This tests how long it took to yield() between 2
states for N times
calls: This tests how long it took to call() N times
Alarms
alarms: This tests how long it took to add N alarms via alarm(),
overwriting each other
alarm_adds: This tests how long it took to add N alarms via
alarm_add()
alarm_clears: This tests how long it took to clear all alarms set in
the "alarm_adds" test
NOTE: alarm_add is not available on all versions of POE!
Sessions
session_creates: This tests how long it took to create N sessions
session_destroys: This tests how long it took to destroy all
sessions created in the "session_creates" test
Filehandles
select_read_STDIN: This tests how long it took to toggle select_read
N times on STDIN
select_write_STDIN: This tests how long it took to toggle
select_write N times on STDIN
select_read_MYFH: This tests how long it took to toggle select_read
N times on a real filehandle
select_write_MYFH: This tests how long it took to toggle
select_write N times on a real filehandle
NOTE: The MYFH tests don't include the time it took to
open()/close() the file :)
Sockets
socket_connects: This tests how long it took to connect+disconnect
to a SocketFactory server via localhost
socket_stream: This tests how long it took to send N chunks of data
in a "ping-pong" fashion between the server and client
POE startup time
startups: This tests how long it took to start + close N instances
of POE+Loop without any sessions/etc via system()
POE Loops
This is actually a "super" test where all of the specific tests is
ran against various POE::Loop::XYZ/FOO for comparison
NOTE: Not all versions of POE support all Loops!
POE Assertions
This is actually a "super" test where all of the specific tests is
ran against POE with/without assertions enabled
NOTE: Not all versions of POE support assertions!
POE::XS::Queue::Array
This is actually a "super" test where all of the specific tests is
ran against POE with XS goodness enabled/disabled
NOTE: Not all versions of POE support XS::Queue::Array!
DESCRIPTION
This module is poorly documented now. Please give me some time to
properly document it over time :)
INSTALLATION
Here's a simple outline to get you up to speed quickly. ( and smoking! )
Install CPAN package + dependencies
Download+install the POE::Devel::Benchmarker package from CPAN
apoc@apoc-x300:~$ cpanp -i POE::Devel::Benchmarker
Setup initial directories
Go anywhere, and create the "parent" directory where you'll be
storing test results + stuff. For this example, I have chosen to use
~/poe-benchmarker:
apoc@apoc-x300:~$ mkdir poe-benchmarker
apoc@apoc-x300:~$ cd poe-benchmarker
apoc@apoc-x300:~/poe-benchmarker$ mkdir poedists results images
apoc@apoc-x300:~/poe-benchmarker$ perl -MPOE::Devel::Benchmarker::GetPOEdists -e 'getPOEdists( 1 )'
( go get a coffee while it downloads if you're on a slow link, ha! )
Let 'er rip!
At this point you can start running the benchmark!
NOTE: the Benchmarker expects everything to be in the "local"
directory!
apoc@apoc-x300:~$ cd poe-benchmarker
apoc@apoc-x300:~/poe-benchmarker$ perl -MPOE::Devel::Benchmarker -e 'benchmark()'
( go sleep or something, this will take a while! )
BENCHMARKING
On startup the Benchmarker will look in the "poedists" directory and
load all the distributions it sees untarred there. Once that is done it
will begin autoprobing for available POE::Loop packages. Once it
determines what's available, it will begin the benchmarks.
As the Benchmarker goes through the combinations of POE + Eventloop +
Assertions + XS::Queue it will dump data into the results directory. The
module also dumps YAML output in the same place, with the suffix of
".yml"
This module exposes only one subroutine, the benchmark() one. You can
pass a hashref to it to set various options. Here is a list of the valid
options:
freshstart => boolean
This will tell the Benchmarker to ignore any previous test runs
stored in the 'results' directory. This will not delete data from
previous runs, only overwrite them. So be careful if you're mixing
test runs from different versions!
benchmark( { freshstart => 1 } );
default: false
noxsqueue => boolean
This will tell the Benchmarker to force the unavailability of
POE::XS::Queue::Array and skip those tests.
NOTE: The Benchmarker will set this automatically if it cannot load
the module!
benchmark( { noxsqueue => 1 } );
default: false
noasserts => boolean
This will tell the Benchmarker to not run the ASSERT tests.
benchmark( { noasserts => 1 } );
default: false
litetests => boolean
This enables the "lite" tests which will not take up too much time.
benchmark( { litetests => 0 } );
default: true
quiet => boolean
This enables quiet mode which will not print anything to the console
except for errors.
benchmark( { 'quiet' => 1 } );
default: false
loop => csv list or array
This overrides the built-in loop detection algorithm which searches
for all known loops.
There is some "magic" here where you can put a negative sign in
front of a loop and we will NOT run that.
NOTE: Capitalization is important!
benchmark( { 'loop' => 'IO_Poll,Select' } ); # runs only IO::Poll and Select
benchmark( { 'loop' => [ qw( Tk Gtk ) ] } ); # runs only Tk and Gtk
benchmark( { 'loop' => '-Tk' } ); # runs all available loops EXCEPT for TK
Known loops: Event_Lib EV Glib Prima Gtk Kqueue Tk Select IO_Poll
poe => csv list or array
This overrides the built-in POE version detection algorithm which
pulls the POE versions from the 'poedists' directory.
There is some "magic" here where you can put a negative sign in
front of a version and we will NOT run that.
NOTE: The Benchmarker will ignore versions that wasn't found in the
directory!
benchmark( { 'poe' => '0.35,1.003' } ); # runs on 0.35 and 1.003
benchmark( { 'poe' => [ qw( 0.3009 0.12 ) ] } ); # runs on 0.3009 and 0.12
benchmark( { 'poe' => '-0.35' } ); # runs ALL tests except 0.35
ANALYZING RESULTS
Please look at the pretty charts generated by the
POE::Devel::Benchmarker::Imager module.
EXPORT
Automatically exports the benchmark() subroutine.
TODO
Perl version smoking
We should be able to run the benchmark over different Perl versions.
This would require some fiddling with our layout + logic. It's not
that urgent because the workaround is to simply execute the
benchmarker under a different perl binary. It's smart enough to use
$^X to be consistent across tests/subprocesses :)
Select the EV backend
<Khisanth> and if you are benchmarking, try it with POE using EV with EV using Glib? :P
<Apocalypse> I'm not sure how to configure the EV "backend" yet
<Apocalypse> too much docs for me to read hah
<Khisanth> Apocalypse: use EV::Glib; use Glib; use POE; :)
Be smarter in smoking timeouts
Currently we depend on the litetests option and hardcode some values
including the timeout. If your machine is incredibly slow, there's a
chance that it could timeout unnecessarily. Please look at the
outputs and check to see if there are unusual failures, and inform
me.
Also, some loops perform badly and take almost forever! /me glares
at Gtk...
More benchmarks!
As usual, me and the crowd in #poe have plenty of ideas for tests.
We'll be adding them over time, but if you have an idea please drop
me a line and let me know!
dngor said there was some benchmarks in the POE svn under
trunk/queue...
Tapout contributed a script that tests HTTP performance, let's see
if it deserves to be in the suite :)
I added the preliminary socket tests, we definitely should expand it
seeing how many people use POE for networking...
Add SQLite/DBI/etc support to the Analyzer
It would be nice if we could have a local SQLite db to dump our
stats into. This would make arbitrary reports much easier than
loading raw YAML files and trying to make sense of them, ha! Also,
this means somebody can do the smoking and send the SQLite db to
another person to generate the graphs, cool!
Kqueue loop support
As I don't have access to a *BSD box, I cannot really test this.
Furthermore, it isn't clear on how I can force/unload this module
from POE...
Wx loop support
I have Wx installed, but it doesn't work. Obviously I don't know how
to use Wx ;)
If you have experience, please drop me a line on how to do the
"right" thing to get Wx loaded under POE. Here's the error:
Can't call method "MainLoop" on an undefined value at /usr/local/share/perl/5.8.8/POE/Loop/Wx.pm line 91.
XS::Loop support
The POE::XS::Loop::* modules theoretically could be tested too.
However, they will only work in POE >= 1.003! This renders the
concept somewhat moot. Maybe, after POE has progressed some versions
we can implement this...
SEE ALSO
POE
SUPPORT
You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.
perldoc POE::Devel::Benchmarker
Websites
* AnnoCPAN: Annotated CPAN documentation
<http://annocpan.org/dist/POE-Devel-Benchmarker>
* CPAN Ratings
<http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/POE-Devel-Benchmarker>
* RT: CPAN's request tracker
<http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=POE-Devel-Benchmarker>
* Search CPAN
<http://search.cpan.org/dist/POE-Devel-Benchmarker>
Bugs
Please report any bugs or feature requests to "bug-poe-devel-benchmarker
at rt.cpan.org", or through the web interface at
<http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=POE-Devel-Benchmarker>.
I will be notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of
progress on your bug as I make changes.
AUTHOR
Apocalypse <apocal@cpan.org>
BIG THANKS goes to Rocco Caputo <rcaputo@cpan.org> for the first
benchmarks!
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
Copyright 2009 by Apocalypse
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself.