stap_merge benchmarks

[Lukas Berk]

For those interested,

I tested out various versions the stap_merge.tcl script to see the how long it would take to generate a merged document.  Noting that the greatest performance factor was printing to stderr vs an $outfile I came up with these versions. 

Script1 - the original script
Script2 - change the -v flag to print to the $outfile (if it exists)
Script3 - Allow the user to decide to print -v to stderr or the $outfile (again, if it exists)

Each script has the seconds it took to complete, and the size of the output file.

input files (MB) | Script 1 (sec/MB) | Script 2 (sec/MB) | Script 3v1 (sec/MB) | Script 3v2 (sec/MB) | Script 1 (sec/MB)
_________________|___________________|___________________|_-v to sterr_________|_-v to $outfile______|_no -v flag_______
    116 / 108    |     31 / 221      |     20 / 235      |      44 / 221       |      37 / 235       |     18 / 221
                 |                   |                   |                     |                     |                  
    92 / 65      |     30 / 154      |     13 / 164      |      21 / 154       |      28 / 164       |     12 / 154
                 |                   |                   |                     |                     |                  
    47 / 28      |     10 / 73       |      7 / 78       |      10 / 73        |       7 / 78        |      5 / 73
                 |                   |                   |                     |                     |                  
    100 / 94     |     26 / 190      |     18 / 203      |      31 / 190       |      34 / 203       |     29 / 190
                 |                   |                   |                     |                     |                  
    9.2 / 16     |      5 / 24       |      2 / 27       |       4 / 24        |       3 / 27        |      3 / 24
                 |                   |                   |                     |                     |                  
    266 / 282    |     58 / 541      |     59 / 567      |      82 / 541       |      67 / 567       |     61 / 541
                 |                   |                   |                     |                     |                  
    87 / 100     |     25 / 183      |     20 / 195      |      27 / 183       |      30 / 195       |     28 / 183
                 |                   |                   |                     |                     |                  
    80 / 90      |     23 / 167      |     14 / 178      |      25 / 167       |      16 / 178       |     20 / 167
                 |                   |                   |                     |                     |                  
    150 / 154    |     75 / 300      |     31 / 317      |      40 / 300       |      35 / 317       |     31 / 300
                 |                   |                   |                     |                     |                   

It seems that Script 2 generally outperforms the other scripts, even the original script with no verbose flag specified, however the output file is larger.  Any thoughts? Are these acceptable results?

Lukas Berk