Unserialize vs Include

Posted by John Kleijn • Sunday, December 7. 2008 • Category: PHP

Cutting straight to chase, the results:

r448191@goliath:~/bench$ php bench.php 10
Total include: 0.000389575958252
Total unserialize: 0.000274181365967
r448191@goliath:~/bench$ php bench.php 100
Total include: 0.0033860206604
Total unserialize: 0.00247645378113
r448191@goliath:~/bench$ php bench.php 1000
Total include: 0.0342044830322
Total unserialize: 0.0263719558716
r448191@goliath:~/bench$ php bench.php 10000
Total include: 0.32866358757
Total unserialize: 0.25150680542
r448191@goliath:~/bench$ php bench.php 100000
Total include: 3.23683238029
Total unserialize: 2.56990027428

The data (data.php):

<?php
return array(
'foo' => 'bar',
'meh' => array(
'o' => 'my',
'god' => 'this',
'is' => 'very'
),
'tedious'
);

The test script (run from CLI with iteration argument):

<?php
class Stopwatch
{
private $_start;

private $_stop;

private $_elapsed = 0;

public function start()
{
$this->_start = microtime(true);
}

public function stop()
{
$this->_stop = microtime(true);

$this->_elapsed += $this->_stop - $this->_start;
}

public function getElapsed()
{
return $this->_elapsed;
}
}
class QuickNDirtyBench
{
private $_serializationFile;

public function __construct($serializationFile)
{
$this->_serializationFile = $serializationFile;
}

public function benchUnserialize($i)
{
$stopwatch = new Stopwatch();

for (; $i > 0 ; --$i)
{
$stopwatch->start();

$array = unserialize(file_get_contents($this->_serializationFile));

$stopwatch->stop();
}

return $stopwatch->getElapsed();
}

public function benchInclude($i)
{
$stopwatch = new Stopwatch();

for (; $i > 0 ; --$i)
{
$stopwatch->start();

$array = include 'data.php';

$stopwatch->stop();
}

file_put_contents($this->_serializationFile, serialize($array));

return $stopwatch->getElapsed();
}

public function sanityCheck()
{
$array1 = include 'data.php';

if(!is_array($array1))
{
throw new Exception("Sanity check failed");
}

$array2 = unserialize(file_get_contents($this->_serializationFile));

if(!is_array($array1))
{
throw new Exception("Sanity check failed");
}

if($array1 !== $array2)
{
throw new Exception("Sanity check failed");
}
}
}

$bencher = new QuickNDirtyBench('serialized.txt');

echo "Total include: {$bencher->benchInclude($argv[1])}\\n";
echo "Total unserialize: {$bencher->benchUnserialize($argv[1])}\\n";

$bencher->sanityCheck();

Tagged benchmarks