itsme86's challenge...

Subject of debate: Which language is faster?

I gave this some thought and decided that rather than presenting source code for some esoteric thing that would slant things in C's favor but would never happen in the real world, I'd like to see the results for something real... sorting a large array of ints.

itsme86... Play fair, no language specific optimizations... just translations...
The baseline is this code in C on a given machine, other languages should compare to that.

On my "I don't care if I fry the CPU" system (AMD64 X2 @2.4ghz, ddr2 800mhz) when compiled in PellesC with full optimizations, this code averages 1030ms for 10 tries... so, just over 10 seconds. Of course the only fair comparison is on the same machine... so...

Code:

// create and sort large array

#include <stdio.h>
#include <windows.h>

#define MAXARRAY 100000

int main( void )
  { int x;                    // loop counter
    int y;                    // loop counter
    int max;                  // maximum value
    int swp;                  // swap pointer
    int Swaps = 0;            // swap counter
    unsigned int Start;       // timing
    unsigned int Finish;

    printf( "Benchmark on %d elements\n",MAXARRAY);

    // timestamp
    Start = GetTickCount();  // in milliseconds

    // create array
    int *Array = malloc(MAXARRAY * sizeof(int));

    // fill array
    srand(Start);
    for (x = 0; x < MAXARRAY; x++)
      Array[x] = rand() % MAXARRAY;

    // sort
    for (x = MAXARRAY - 1; x > 0; x--)
      { max = Array[x]; 
        swp = x;
        for (y = 0; y < x; y++)
         { if (Array[y] > max)
             { max = Array[y];
               swp = y; } }
           if (swp < x )
              { Array[swp] = Array[x];
                Array[x] = max;
                ++Swaps; } }

    // timestamp
    Finish = GetTickCount();
 
    // report
    printf("Time = %d milliseconds for %d swaps\n",Finish - Start,Swaps);
    return 0; }

BubbleSort? Seriously?

No thanks.

Oh, and you have a bug and shouldn't time allocation or initialization because that isn't language bound.

[Edit]
Oh, wait. You are the one who is "ignoring me". Does anyone else find that funny?
[/Edit]

Soma

System: Intel Core i7-920 @ 3.96GHz

I compiled your code as: bin\gcc -Wall -O3 ArraySortChallenge.c -o ArraySortChallenge.exe
... and got:

Code:

Benchmark on 100000 elements
Time = 2563 milliseconds for 99963 swaps

And here's the "equivalent" code I came up with in C#:

Code:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Diagnostics;

namespace ArraySortChallenge
{
    class Program
    {
        private const int _MaxArray = 100000;

        private static Random _Random = new Random();

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            int x, y;  // Loop counters
            int maxValue;
            int swap;
            int swapCounter = 0;

            Console.WriteLine("Benchmark on {0} elements", _MaxArray);

            Stopwatch sw = new Stopwatch();
            sw.Start();

            int[] array = new int[_MaxArray];
            for (x = 0; x < _MaxArray; ++x)
                array[x] = _Random.Next(_MaxArray);

            for (x = _MaxArray - 1; x > 0; --x)
            {
                maxValue = array[x];
                swap = x;
                for (y = 0; y < x; ++y)
                {
                    if (array[y] > maxValue)
                    {
                        maxValue = array[y];
                        swap = y;
                    }
                }

                if (swap < x)
                {
                    array[swap] = array[x];
                    array[x] = maxValue;
                    swapCounter++;
                }
            }

            sw.Stop();

            Console.WriteLine("Time = {0} milliseconds for {1} swaps", sw.ElapsedMilliseconds, swapCounter);
        }
    }
}

I turned "Optomize code" on and got:

Code:

Benchmark on 100000 elements
Time = 3834 milliseconds for 99980 swaps

However, I wouldn't ever bother manually sorting my arrays in C#. So here's (just for fun) a C#-ified version of the program:

Code:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Diagnostics;

namespace ArraySortChallenge
{
    class Program
    {
        private const int _MaxArray = 100000;

        private static Random _Random = new Random();

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            int i;  // iterator

            Console.WriteLine("Benchmark on {0} elements", _MaxArray);

            Stopwatch sw = new Stopwatch();
            sw.Start();

            int[] array = new int[_MaxArray];
            for (i = 0; i < _MaxArray; ++i)
                array[i] = _Random.Next(_MaxArray);

            array = array.OrderBy(n => n).ToArray();

            sw.Stop();

            Console.WriteLine("Time = {0} milliseconds", sw.ElapsedMilliseconds);
        }
    }
}

I turned "Optomize code" on and got:

Code:

Benchmark on 100000 elements
Time = 32 milliseconds

I thought at first that I did something wrong, but I had it print out all 100000 elements and, sure enough, it's sorted.

Anyway, with the "equivalent" code, C came out to be about 35% faster. Now executable size:

C version:

Code:

 Directory of C:\Dev-Cpp

03/05/2011  08:35 PM            18,506 ArraySortChallenge.exe
               1 File(s)         18,506 bytes
               0 Dir(s)  517,879,136,256 bytes free

C# version:

Code:

 Directory of C:\Users\Mike\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Proj
enge\ArraySortChallenge\bin\Release

03/05/2011  08:41 PM             5,632 ArraySortChallenge.exe
               1 File(s)          5,632 bytes
               0 Dir(s)  517,879,136,256 bytes free

The C# version is less than 1/3 the size.

I thought at first that I did something wrong, but I had it print out all 100000 elements and, sure enough, it's sorted.

BubbleSort Versus QuickSort or RadixSort or HeapSort or... much anything other than BubbleSort

Soma

Originally Posted by CommonTater

Subject of debate: Which language is faster?

I suppose I could run your code in other languages. istme86 already managed C#, I could do it for erlang. But here's some food for thought:

- Compilers can affect results. Will the same C code run exactly the same when compiled with Visual C++, gcc, Watcom, Digital Mars, Pelles, etc...? Meaning, results for any language enjoying multiple compilers are immaterial.

- On interpreted languages, certain languages constructs are highly optimized when moved to intermediary code, giving them an "unfair" advantage. This could be seen as irrelevant, given that it still answers the question of which language is faster. However the intermediary code may have nothing to do with the requirements you set forth.

- Any answer you might get has to be interpreted this way: For this algorithm, under these conditions, for this system and compiled with these compilers, language X is faster than language Y. The premises are so many and so restrictive that there's hardly anything of use in these results.

Just saying.

Originally Posted by phantomotap

BubbleSort Versus QuickSort or RadixSort or HeapSort or... much anything other than BubbleSort

Soma

Look again... It's not a bubble sort... Moreover it would not matter if it is or not... The point is to compare identical code on different languages... I guess it's time to put you back in the old ignore list for another couple of weeks. Although I don't really expect you to get any smarter for it...

Originally Posted by itsme86

System: Intel Core i7-920 @ 3.96GHz

Code:

Benchmark on 100000 elements
Time = 2563 milliseconds for 99963 swaps

Code:

Benchmark on 100000 elements
Time = 3834 milliseconds for 99980 swaps

Impressive system... almost 4 times as fast as my junker. On my main system (AMD X4, 3ghz) I ended up at about 3900.

That's more or less what I expected from C#... about half again as long... Java would, I think be a little slower.

However, I wouldn't ever bother manually sorting my arrays in C#.

Neither would I ... C++, C# and C itself provide far more efficient sort algorythms...
My time was like 400ms with quicksort...

Code:

03/05/2011  08:35 PM            18,506 ArraySortChallenge.exe
               1 File(s)         18,506 bytes
               0 Dir(s)  517,879,136,256 bytes free

Mine came in at about 31k on PellesC... but it static links rather than using the Windows C runtimes so a tiny bit of bloat gets in there as a 1 time blob. By the time our code got beyond 100K we'd still be about 16k different...

C# version:

Code:

 Directory of C:\Users\Mike\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Proj
enge\ArraySortChallenge\bin\Release

03/05/2011  08:41 PM             5,632 ArraySortChallenge.exe
               1 File(s)          5,632 bytes
               0 Dir(s)  517,879,136,256 bytes free

The C# version is less than 1/3 the size.

Yes, not including the runtime code... Add that in and it's a little different story.

Moreover it would not matter if it is or not

^_^

Awesome.

I guess it's time to put you back in the old ignore list for another couple of weeks.

^_^

Awesome.

Soma

Originally Posted by CommonTater

My time was like 400ms with quicksort...

I find it highly amusing that C# beats out C using C#'s IEnumerable<>.OrderBy() and C's qsort().

Don't get me wrong. I love C. I just hope the C# bashing can stop now that we've shown what it can do. I think you'll agree that it's more impressive than you were giving it credit.

Originally Posted by itsme86

I find it highly amusing that C# beats out C using C#'s IEnumerable<>.OrderBy() and C's qsort().

Don't get me wrong. I love C. I just hope the C# bashing can stop now that we've shown what it can do. I think you'll agree that it's more impressive than you were giving it credit.

Yeah... but it's still "baby code".... LOL.

Seriously though... I am impressed. Especially when you use the optimized sort... There is a hit, but nowhere near as bad as I figured. The last time I did anything like this C# and Java massively sucked by comparison.

Thanks!

python's not bad either, but it appears to be the slowest. I have an Intel P4 CPU though.

Here's the script:

Code:

def foo():
    from random import randrange
    L = [randrange(1,200) for i in range(100000)]
    L.sort()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    foo()

Here's the profile:

Code:

C:\Python27>python -m cProfile "C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Desktop\sorttest
.py"
         200052 function calls in 1.136 seconds

   Ordered by: standard name

   ncalls  tottime  percall  cumtime  percall filename:lineno(function)
        1    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000 __future__.py:48(<module>)
        1    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000 __future__.py:74(_Feature)
        7    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000 __future__.py:75(__init__)
        1    0.002    0.002    0.002    0.002 hashlib.py:55(<module>)
        6    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000 hashlib.py:91(__get_openssl_constr
uctor)
        1    0.000    0.000    0.075    0.075 random.py:100(seed)
   100000    0.585    0.000    0.727    0.000 random.py:173(randrange)
        1    0.007    0.007    0.084    0.084 random.py:40(<module>)
        1    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000 random.py:647(WichmannHill)
        1    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000 random.py:72(Random)
        1    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000 random.py:797(SystemRandom)
        1    0.000    0.000    0.075    0.075 random.py:91(__init__)
        1    0.001    0.001    1.136    1.136 sorttest.py:2(<module>)
        1    0.246    0.246    1.135    1.135 sorttest.py:2(foo)
        1    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000 {_hashlib.openssl_md5}
        1    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000 {_hashlib.openssl_sha1}
        1    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000 {_hashlib.openssl_sha224}
        1    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000 {_hashlib.openssl_sha256}
        1    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000 {_hashlib.openssl_sha384}
        1    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000 {_hashlib.openssl_sha512}
        1    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000 {binascii.hexlify}
        1    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000 {function seed at 0x00BDB2F0}
        6    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000 {getattr}
        6    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000 {globals}
        1    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000 {math.exp}
        2    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000 {math.log}
        1    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000 {math.sqrt}
        1    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000 {method 'disable' of '_lsprof.Prof
iler' objects}
   100000    0.142    0.000    0.142    0.000 {method 'random' of '_random.Rando
m' objects}
        1    0.074    0.074    0.074    0.074 {method 'sort' of 'list' objects}
        1    0.075    0.075    0.075    0.075 {nt.urandom}
        1    0.005    0.005    0.005    0.005 {range}

I guess it does have a space advantage. sorttest.py is a mighty 154 bytes....

Originally Posted by whiteflags

python's not bad either, but it appears to be the slowest. I have an Intel P4 CPU though.

I think you missed the point... We're not comparing optimized sorts, we're comparing languages with exact translations of the C code I provided in the first message...

I can see this thread is a followup to some previous debate. It would have been good if that has been mentioned (and where it is). Not everyone necessary follows every single thread on this forums and when replying we may be ignorant of the previous debate and of the whole context for this thread. Seems to have been my case.

Originally Posted by Mario F.

I can see this thread is a followup to some previous debate. It would have been good if that has been mentioned (and where it is). Not everyone necessary follows every single thread on this forums and when replying we may be ignorant of the previous debate and of the whole context for this thread. Seems to have been my case.

You're right. Good point.

The original post can be found here: New to C : combining lines in text files

Thanks for the heads up.

Ah, the old "everything that isn't c or c++ is a toy language" debate.
Fun... :/

Did I mention that the London Stock Market uses C# for their entire stock exchange system? Glad I didn't. It could be scary the thought that folks over there were playing with toys. And sure am glad I won't ever mention that I owe Visual Basic my house, my marriage and my general well-being. People could get ideas and think that you don't have to work to make a living, just play around.