String#blank? Ruby Extension
fast_blank is a simple C extension which provides a fast implementation of Active Support's String#blank? method.
How do you use it?
require 'fast_blank'
or add it to your Bundler Gemfile
gem 'fast_blank'
How fast is "Fast"?
About 1.2–20x faster than Active Support on my machine (your mileage my vary, depends on string length):
$ bundle exec ./benchmark
================== Test String Length: 0 ==================
Calculating -------------------------------------
Fast Blank 225.251k i/100ms
Fast ActiveSupport 225.676k i/100ms
Slow Blank 110.934k i/100ms
New Slow Blank 221.792k i/100ms
-------------------------------------------------
Fast Blank 29.673M (± 2.7%) i/s - 148.215M
Fast ActiveSupport 28.249M (± 3.5%) i/s - 141.048M
Slow Blank 2.158M (± 3.3%) i/s - 10.872M
New Slow Blank 23.558M (± 3.2%) i/s - 117.772M
Comparison:
Fast Blank: 29673200.1 i/s
Fast ActiveSupport: 28248894.5 i/s - 1.05x slower
New Slow Blank: 23557900.0 i/s - 1.26x slower
Slow Blank: 2157787.7 i/s - 13.75x slower
================== Test String Length: 6 ==================
Calculating -------------------------------------
Fast Blank 201.185k i/100ms
Fast ActiveSupport 205.076k i/100ms
Slow Blank 102.061k i/100ms
New Slow Blank 123.087k i/100ms
-------------------------------------------------
Fast Blank 13.894M (± 2.3%) i/s - 69.409M
Fast ActiveSupport 14.627M (± 3.5%) i/s - 73.212M
Slow Blank 1.943M (± 2.3%) i/s - 9.798M
New Slow Blank 2.796M (± 1.8%) i/s - 14.032M
Comparison:
Fast ActiveSupport: 14627063.7 i/s
Fast Blank: 13893631.2 i/s - 1.05x slower
New Slow Blank: 2795783.3 i/s - 5.23x slower
Slow Blank: 1943025.9 i/s - 7.53x slower
================== Test String Length: 14 ==================
Calculating -------------------------------------
Fast Blank 220.004k i/100ms
Fast ActiveSupport 219.716k i/100ms
Slow Blank 147.399k i/100ms
New Slow Blank 106.651k i/100ms
-------------------------------------------------
Fast Blank 24.949M (± 3.0%) i/s - 124.742M
Fast ActiveSupport 24.491M (± 3.3%) i/s - 122.382M
Slow Blank 4.292M (± 1.6%) i/s - 21.520M
New Slow Blank 2.115M (± 2.4%) i/s - 10.665M
Comparison:
Fast Blank: 24948558.8 i/s
Fast ActiveSupport: 24491245.1 i/s - 1.02x slower
Slow Blank: 4292490.5 i/s - 5.81x slower
New Slow Blank: 2115097.6 i/s - 11.80x slower
================== Test String Length: 24 ==================
Calculating -------------------------------------
Fast Blank 206.555k i/100ms
Fast ActiveSupport 208.513k i/100ms
Slow Blank 137.733k i/100ms
New Slow Blank 101.215k i/100ms
-------------------------------------------------
Fast Blank 16.761M (± 2.7%) i/s - 83.861M
Fast ActiveSupport 17.710M (± 3.2%) i/s - 88.618M
Slow Blank 3.744M (± 2.0%) i/s - 18.732M
New Slow Blank 1.962M (± 2.7%) i/s - 9.818M
Comparison:
Fast ActiveSupport: 17709936.5 i/s
Fast Blank: 16760839.7 i/s - 1.06x slower
Slow Blank: 3744048.4 i/s - 4.73x slower
New Slow Blank: 1961831.1 i/s - 9.03x slower
================== Test String Length: 136 ==================
Calculating -------------------------------------
Fast Blank 201.772k i/100ms
Fast ActiveSupport 189.120k i/100ms
Slow Blank 129.439k i/100ms
New Slow Blank 90.677k i/100ms
-------------------------------------------------
Fast Blank 16.718M (± 2.8%) i/s - 83.534M
Fast ActiveSupport 17.617M (± 3.6%) i/s - 87.941M
Slow Blank 3.725M (± 3.0%) i/s - 18.639M
New Slow Blank 1.940M (± 4.8%) i/s - 9.702M
Comparison:
Fast ActiveSupport: 17616782.1 i/s
Fast Blank: 16718307.8 i/s - 1.05x slower
Slow Blank: 3725097.6 i/s - 4.73x slower
New Slow Blank: 1940271.2 i/s - 9.08x slower
Additionally, this gem allocates no strings during the test, making it less of a GC burden.
Compatibility note:
fast_blank supports MRI Ruby 1.9.3, 2.0, 2.1, and 2.2, as well as Rubinius 2.x. Earlier versions of MRI are untested.
fast_blank implements String#blank? as MRI would have implemented it, meaning it has 100% parity with String#strip.length == 0.
Active Support's version also considers Unicode spaces. For example, "\u2000\u2001\u2002\u2003\u2004\u2005\u2006\u2007\u2008\u2009\u200A\u202F\u205F\u3000".blank? is true in Active Support even though fast_blank would treat it as not blank. Therefore, fast_blank also provides blank_as? which is a 100%-compatible Active Support blank? replacement.
Credits
- Author: Sam Saffron (sam.saffron@gmail.com)
- https://github.com/SamSaffron/fast_blank
- License: MIT
- Gem template based on CodeMonkeySteve/fast_xor
Change log:
1.0.1:
- Minor, avoid warnings if redefining blank?
1.0.0:
0.0.2: