I know this is a very simply question, but I’ve seen many different
responses.
Isn’t it better to use ‘some string’ instead of “some string”.
Because the “” goes through a lot more working interpreting any
variable that might be in the string, etc. Where as ‘’ is just literal.
Thanks for your help.
Thank You,
Ben J.
E: [email protected]
On Fri, Jul 21, 2006 at 03:48:09AM +0900, Ben J. wrote:
I know this is a very simply question, but I’ve seen many different
responses.Isn’t it better to use ‘some string’ instead of “some string”.
Because the “” goes through a lot more working interpreting any
variable that might be in the string, etc. Where as ‘’ is just literal.
Aesthetics aside, Ruby optomizes double quoted strings that don’t have
any
interpolation so the performance difference between the two is
irrelevant.
marcel
Ben J. wrote:
Ben J.
E: [email protected]
I like to think it makes a difference, but…
Don’t know if this is a good benchmark or not (probably not):
require ‘benchmark’
include Benchmark
bmbm(10) { |r|
r.report(‘Literal’) {
1000000.times {
‘asdjasdjpaidjpoasjdsadsadajpsodjaposdjpaojvpdoasjpdoajs
pdoBaspdojaspodjpaowjeAo’
}
}
r.report(‘Interpolated’) {
1000000.times {
“asdjasdjpaidjpoasjdsadsadajpsodjaposdjpaojvpdoasjpdoajs
pdoBaspdojaspodjpaowjeAo”
}
}
}
Rehearsal ------------------------------------------------
Literal 0.480000 0.000000 0.480000 ( 0.494254)
Interpolated 0.480000 0.000000 0.480000 ( 0.492916)
--------------------------------------- total: 0.960000sec
user system total real
Literal 0.490000 0.000000 0.490000 ( 0.546283)
Interpolated 0.490000 0.000000 0.490000 ( 0.501239)
On Jul 20, 2006, at 1:48 PM, Ben J. wrote:
I know this is a very simply question, but I’ve seen many different
responses.Isn’t it better to use ‘some string’ instead of “some string”.
Because the “” goes through a lot more working interpreting any
variable that might be in the string, etc. Where as ‘’ is just
literal.
‘…’ goes through processing too, just less. ’ and \ are special
inside ‘…’.
Is there a time difference though? Let’s ask Ruby:
#!/usr/bin/env ruby -w
require “benchmark”
TESTS = 10_000_000.freeze
Benchmark.bmbm(10) do |results|
results.report(“single:”) { TESTS.times { ‘My String’ } }
results.report(“double:”) { TESTS.times { “My String” } }
end
END
Doesn’t look like it. Guess Ruby is pretty smart about handling this.
End facts. Begin opinions…
I use to use ‘…’ all the time thinking it was a good programming
habit. Unfortunately, it just meant I had to switch to “…” every
time I belatedly realized I would need some interpolation. So, as
I’ve gotten lazier, I’ve pretty much switched to using “…” all the
time.
James Edward G. II
On 7/20/06, Ben J. [email protected] wrote:
I know this is a very simply question, but I’ve seen many different
responses.Isn’t it better to use ‘some string’ instead of “some string”.
Because the “” goes through a lot more working interpreting any
variable that might be in the string, etc. Where as ‘’ is just literal.
I usually use double quotes since my strings often have apostrophes in
'em.
‘Tis better’n always escapin’ ‘em anyways. Maybe it’s just me tho’.
—John
On Thu, 20 Jul 2006 20:48:09 +0200, Ben J.
[email protected]
wrote:
I know this is a very simply question, but I’ve seen many different
responses.Isn’t it better to use ‘some string’ instead of “some string”.
Because the “” goes through a lot more working interpreting any
variable that might be in the string, etc. Where as ‘’ is just literal.
There is no difference at all after parsing, both get turned into a
NODE_STR (unless there are interpolations):
%{“abc”}.parse_to_nodes.transform
=> [:str, {:lit=>“abc”}]
%{‘abc’}.parse_to_nodes.transform
=> [:str, {:lit=>“abc”}]
And I don’t think that there is any significant performance difference
while parsing, so use whatever you like more.
Dominik
Use " by default:
- It makes the code more aestethic.
- It helps when you have to put some inside like #{} '.
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On Sep 25, 2006, at 12:03 PM, Rich M. wrote:
Use ‘’ by default:
- It’s less work for the interpreter.
What makes you say this?
#!/usr/bin/env ruby -w
require “benchmark”
TESTS = 1_000_000
Benchmark.bmbm(10) do |results|
results.report(“double:”) { TESTS.times { “James” } }
results.report(“single:”) { TESTS.times { ‘James’ } }
end
James Edward G. II
Use ‘’ by default:
It’s less work for the interpreter.
It alerts the reader to impending “#{magic}”.
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm Rich M.
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/resume [email protected]
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog +1 650-873-7841
Technical editing and writing, programming, and web development
Rich M. wrote:
…
The real point, in any case, is one of making things clear
to the reader. If a quoted string uses double quotes, the
reader has to look it over to determine whether any magic
is being performed. This wastes some of the reader’s time
(and no, I don’t have a benchmark for this. :-).
True, but syntax hiliting can help spot the #{…}.
At 3:10 AM +0900 9/26/06, James Edward G. II wrote:
On Sep 25, 2006, at 12:03 PM, Rich M. wrote:
Use ‘’ by default:
- It’s less work for the interpreter.
What makes you say this?
If the interpreter sees a single-quoted string, it knows
that it doesn’t need to scan the string for things (such
as escape sequences) to expand. I agree that this effect
will be lost in the noise, in most cases, but why make the
interpreter do extra work?
The real point, in any case, is one of making things clear
to the reader. If a quoted string uses double quotes, the
reader has to look it over to determine whether any magic
is being performed. This wastes some of the reader’s time
(and no, I don’t have a benchmark for this. :-).
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm Rich M.
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/resume [email protected]
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog +1 650-873-7841
Technical editing and writing, programming, and web development
James Edward G. II [email protected] writes:
require “benchmark”
TESTS = 1_000_000
Benchmark.bmbm(10) do |results|
results.report(“double:”) { TESTS.times { “James” } }
results.report(“single:”) { TESTS.times { ‘James’ } }
end
You really should compare the parse-trees of these before even trying
to benchmark it that way…
On Tue, Sep 26, 2006 at 05:00:17AM +0900, Christian N. wrote:
#!/usr/bin/env ruby -w
to benchmark it that way…
In the non-interpolation case the parse-trees are identical:
% cat strings.rb
f(‘James’, “James”)
% cat strings.rb | parse_tree_show -f
[[:fcall, :f, [:array, [:str, “James”], [:str, “James”]]]]
On 25/09/06, dave [email protected] wrote:
Use " by default:
- It makes the code more aestethic. - It helps when you have to put some inside like #{} '.
I often end up typing ’ simply because it’s an unmodified key on my
keyboard, unlike " which necessitates pressing shift as well.
Here’s a little trick for when you have a '-quoted string that you
want to add interpolation to: just add %:
before:
‘foo #{3}’ # => “foo #{3}”
after:
%‘foo #{3}’ # => “foo 3”
I’m not saying you should do it all the time, but it’s occasionally
nice to save a few keystrokes when playing around with some code.
Paul.
“Rick DeNatale” [email protected] writes:
You really should compare the parse-trees of these before even trying
to benchmark it that way…Du hast ist recht!
Drop the “ist”.
Benchmark.bmbm(10) do |results|
double: 32.160000 1.040000 33.200000 ( 56.097062)
single: 32.150000 1.090000 33.240000 ( 53.597692)
rick@frodo:/public/rubyscripts$
And now the difference gets lost in noise because the strings aren’t
long enough. 
In the end, it doesn’t matter.
On 9/25/06, Christian N. [email protected] wrote:
#!/usr/bin/env ruby -w
to benchmark it that way…
Du hast ist recht!
Any differences due to parsing are going to happen when the source
code is parsed, which will happen before the benchmark is run.
I believe that this gives a better handle on the relative parsing
overhead, there doesn’t seem to be much difference.
rick@frodo:/public/rubyscripts$ cat slbench.rb
require ‘benchmark’
TESTS = 1_000_000
Benchmark.bmbm(10) do |results|
results.report(“double:”) {TESTS.times{eval(“"James"”)}}
results.report(“single:”) {TESTS.times{eval(‘'James'’)}}
end
rick@frodo:/public/rubyscripts$ ruby slbench.rb
Rehearsal ---------------------------------------------
double: 31.990000 1.030000 33.020000 ( 55.318747)
single: 32.080000 1.120000 33.200000 ( 55.743170)
----------------------------------- total: 66.220000sec
user system total real
double: 32.160000 1.040000 33.200000 ( 56.097062)
single: 32.150000 1.090000 33.240000 ( 53.597692)
rick@frodo:/public/rubyscripts$
–
Rick DeNatale
My blog on Ruby
http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/
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http://ipmsr12.denhaven2.com/
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At 5:29 PM +0900 9/29/06, Eric H. wrote:
Incorrect. For identical string contents the interpreter
does the same amount of work. The parser may do less work,
but you only parse once.
I was speaking of the entire ruby executable as the
interpreter. Clearly, the parsing subsystem is the
only part (if any) that does more work. However, as
I pointed out, this isn’t the real issue.
Indicating the possibility of “magic” behavior, without
the need for the reader to look inside the quotes, is
my principle concern.
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm Rich M.
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/resume [email protected]
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog +1 650-873-7841
Technical editing and writing, programming, and web development
On Sep 25, 2006, at 12:09 PM, Rich M. wrote:
that it doesn’t need to scan the string for things (such
as escape sequences) to expand. I agree that this effect
will be lost in the noise, in most cases, but why make the
interpreter do extra work?
Incorrect. For identical string contents the interpreter does the
same amount of work. The parser may do less work, but you only parse
once.
$ parse_tree_show -f
[“foo”, ‘foo’, “#{foo}”, ‘#{foo}’]
[[:array,
[:str, “foo”],
[:str, “foo”],
[:dstr, “”, [:vcall, :foo]],
[:str, “#{foo}”]]]
–
Eric H. - [email protected] - http://blog.segment7.net
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