Faster than C? Parsing binary data in JavaScript.

Faster than C?
Parsing binary data in JavaScript
Felix Geisendörfer 7. Oct, 2012 - JSConf.eu

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@felixge

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transloadit.com

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Faster than C?

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Sorry about the
“title bait”

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High
performance
JavaScript

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JavaScript vs C

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Good vs Evil

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Good Parts vs Evil

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Bad Parts vs Evil

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early 2010

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No MySQL module
for node.js
early 2010

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All we had was
NoSQL Libraries
early 2010

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Pure JS / No C/C++

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Before Buffers
became usable

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The Parser was using
JavaScript Strings

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Node.js Trivia

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“ Buffers” used to be
called “Blobs”

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For 3 min and 15 sec

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RIP Blobs
✞

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Sun Dec 13 08:39:20 2009
-
Sun Dec 13 08:42:45 2009

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Anyway

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mysql can be done
without libmysql

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No good deed goes
unpunished

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Sir Isaac Newton

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Third Law of Motion

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“When a first body exerts a force F1
on a second body, the second body
simultaneously exerts a force F2 = −F1
on the first body. This means that F1
and F2 are equal in magnitude and
opposite in direction.”

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Third Law of Github

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“When a first person pushes a
library L1 into a remote repository,
a second person simultaneously
starts working on a second library
L2 which will be equally awesome,
but in a different way.”

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<3 Github!

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0
500
1,000
1,500
mysql−0.9.6 mysql−libmysqlclient−1.5.1
benchmark
mbit
benchmark
mysql−0.9.6
mysql−libmysqlclient−1.5.1

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Of course.

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libmysql = C

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my library = JavaScript

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C > JS, right?

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But V8!

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And Crankshaft!!

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Node.js !!!1!

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Was I
living a lie?

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Kind of

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V8 / Node
= Tools

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Performance
is not a tool

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Performance is
hard work &
data analysis

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0
500
1,000
1,500
mysql−0.9.6 mysql−libmysqlclient−1.5.1mysql−2.0.0−alpha3
benchmark
mbit
benchmark
mysql−0.9.6
mysql−2.0.0−alpha3

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Third Law of Github

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0
1,000
2,000
3,000
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mysql−0.9.6
mysql−2.0.0−alpha3 mariadb−0.1.7
benchmark
mbit
benchmark
mysql−0.9.6
mysql−2.0.0−alpha3
mariadb−0.1.7

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Time to give up?

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NEVER!

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New Parser

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0
2,000
4,000
6,000
mysql2 new−parser
benchmark
mbit
benchmark
mysql2
new−parser

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Third law of Github?

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Endgame

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Last bottleneck:
Creating JS Objects

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Also: MySQL Server saturated

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Anyway

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How to write fast JS

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Does not work

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Profiling
• Good for spotting small functions with stupid
algorithms performing many iterations
• Bad for complex functions with many
primitive operations

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Taking performance advice
from strangers
• Good for ideas & inspiration
• But useless when applied cargo-cult style

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Does Work

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BDD

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Behavior Driven
Development

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Benchmark Driven
Development

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Benchmark Driven Development
• Similar to test driven development
• Use it when performance is an explicit design goal
• Benchmark first > benchmark after !

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1 function benchmark() {
2 // intentionally empty
3 }

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1 while (true) {
2 var start = Date.now();
3 benchmark();
4 var duration = Date.now() - start;
5 console.log(duration);
6 }

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Benchmark Driven Development
• Next step: Implement a tiny part of your function
• Example: Parse headers of MySQL packets
• Look at impact, tweak code, repeat

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Example Results
• try...catch is ok
• big switch statement = bad
• function calls = very cheap
• buffering is ok

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Favorite

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1 function parseRow(columns, parser) {
2 var row = {};
3 for (var i = 0; i < columns.length; i++) {
4 row[columns[i].name] = parser.readColumnValue();
5 }
6 return row;
7 }

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Make it faster!

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1 var code = 'return {\n';
2
3 columns.forEach(function(column) {
4 code += '"' + column.name + '":' + 'parser.readColumnValue(),\n';
5 });
6
7 code += '};\n';
8
9 var parseRow = new Function('columns', 'parser', code);

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->

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1 function parseRow(columns, parser) {
2 return {
3 id : parser.readColumnValue(),
4 title : parser.readColumnValue(),
5 body : parser.readColumnValue(),
6 created : parser.readColumnValue(),
7 updated : parser.readColumnValue(),
8 };
9 }

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eval = awesome

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Data analysis
• Produce data points as tab separated values
• Add as many VM/OS metrics as you can get to every line
• Do not mix data and analysis !!

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Recommended Tools
• node benchmark.js | tee results.tsv
• R Programming language (with ggplot2) !
• Makefiles, Image Magick, Skitch

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Why?

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0
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mysql2 new−parser
benchmark
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3,000
4,000
5,000
6,000
mysql2 new−parser
benchmark
mbit
benchmark
●
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mysql2
new−parser

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3,000
4,000
5,000
6,000
mysql2 new−parser
benchmark
mbit
benchmark
●
●
mysql2
new−parser
Dafuq?
Dafuq?

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3,000
4,000
5,000
6,000
0 100 200 300
number
mbit
benchmark
mysql2
new−parser

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10
20
30
0 100 200 300
number
Heap Total (MB)
benchmark
mysql2
new−parser

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5
10
15
0 100 200 300
number
Heap Used (MB)
benchmark
mysql2
new−parser

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Collect data ->
Analyze it ->
Find problems ->
Tweak the code ->
Repeat

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Thank you

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github.com/felixge/faster-than-c
All benchmarks, results and analysis scripts
Thank you !

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Faster than C? Parsing binary data in JavaScript.

Faster than C? Parsing binary data in JavaScript.

Felix Geisendörfer

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